


Rain Today, Rain Tomorrow

by elliemars



Category: Final Fantasy VIII
Genre: M/M, Mild Gore, Minor Character Death, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-14
Updated: 2015-11-19
Packaged: 2018-02-21 03:52:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 52,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2453705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elliemars/pseuds/elliemars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The worst part of a war is not fighting a war. It's the cleanup, the aftermath. Zell, unsure of where to go, of how to live with the memories of war fresh in his head, finds himself drifting after returning to Garden. Funnily enough, he drifts right into Seifer, who may have some answers. A story told in sets of short ficlets and drabbles. Zell-centric with eventual Seifer/Zell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Filleted

1.  ****  
  
The worst part of a war is not fighting a war. It’s the cleanup, the aftermath. The trying to return to a normal life after having seen and done horrible and terrifying things.  
  
Zell feels like he doesn’t even remember what a normal life is supposed to be like. The others are better at it - or at least, they’re better at pretending. But the mere weeks that have passed between making SeeD and fighting the sorceress in that awful future world seem to him to have been longer than the whole first part of his life.  
  
It’s not the little things that escape him. He remembers to eat three square meals a day and to go to bed at ten and get up at six. He remembers to leave his gloves behind when he goes out, to not stuff his pockets with curatives, he’s only going to the library, he won’t need all that. He remembers to check in with his friends so they don’t start thinking he’s avoiding them, even if he’d rather. He remembers to visit his mum twice a week or she’ll fret over him. Maybe that’s a big thing.  
  
What he can’t remember is how to properly live. The way he’s pretty sure he used to. Laughing and having fun and not thinking every moment about how damn hard it is to just act freaking normal.  
  
  
2.  ****  
  
Quistis has to beg him to go with to Deling City.  
  
“I can’t handle him on my own, Zell,” she pleads, looking even more tired and worn six weeks after the war than she did while they were fighting it. “Squall is too busy and Rinoa says she won’t go and I just… I need someone to come with me…”  
  
“My being there’s not going to make him cooperative,” Zell tries to argue.  
  
“No, I know, but…” She heaves a sigh that seems far too heavy. “Maybe just if he thinks that someone wants him to come back, I mean besides just me, he won’t believe a word I say…”  
  
“I don’t want him back here. He’d never buy that. And I don’t know why you do,” Zell adds harshly.  
  
“It’s not about what either of us wants personally,” Quistis replies. Her lip is trembling and Zell really hopes she’s going to hold the tears in, because she’s come to him crying a fair few times in the past weeks. He wants to know if she cries in front of anyone else, but he’s not brave enough to ask. “He’s got to come back to Garden. If he’s not at Garden, Cid can’t protect him. And if Cid can’t protect him, he’ll be k…”  
  
She bursts into tears without finishing her sentence. Zell takes her by the shoulders and pulls her into an embrace, letting her sob on his shoulder as he resigns himself to going with. Her crying isn’t a ploy to guilt him into it - Quistis isn’t that manipulative - but it accomplishes that feat all the same. He strokes her hair gently to try and calm her. “It’ll be okay, Quis,” he says, which is a complete lie. “It’ll be fine. I’ll go with you, we’ll bring Seifer back. It’ll be fine.”  
  
  
3.  ****  
  
“He ought to be groveling in there,” Zell says meanly, listening to the quiet, undistinguishable murmur of the two men talking in the next room.  
  
Squall, on one side of him, says nothing; Quistis, on the other, only shakes her head. They’re all on edge, waiting for the results of Cid’s meeting with Seifer. Zell knows what the deal is that Cid is planning to offer; whether or not Seifer will take it is impossible to say.  
  
It has all been explained to Zell, he’s heard the logic, but he can’t grasp it with a sense of reality yet. That Seifer should be allowed to come back to Garden at all is an atrocity. But the fact that Cid is in there  _begging_ the traitor to return to Garden makes Zell sick to his stomach.  
  
“Cid’s going to be hated for this,” Zell mutters, thinking out loud.  
  
“He’ll get past it. He’s a good headmaster,” Quistis says.  
  
“He doesn’t have a choice,” Squall inputs, speaking for the first time all morning. “If Seifer doesn’t take Garden’s protection, he’ll be hunted down by every government in the world before the year is out. He’ll take self-preservation over pride. Cid knows that.”  
  
Zell grits his teeth. Squall’s remark only fuels his anger. He’s itching to punch something, but his knuckles are still scabbed over from that brick wall he assaulted in Deling City, so he has to hold back.  
  
  
4.  
  
“Honorary SeeD, huh?”  
  
“Yeah,” Seifer says, looking up from his book as Zell approaches. “Pretty pathetic, isn’t it?”  
  
“God damn right it is!” Zell huffs.  
  
Seifer has been at Garden for a few weeks now, but it still angers Zell every time he thinks of it. Everyone else seems to be adjusting quickly - maybe due to the fact that Seifer’s keeping a low profile, or maybe because most of the people who knew him before have left Garden by now; only a handful of SeeDs stuck with Balamb Garden after the war. Zell wonders every day why he’s one of them.  
  
“It’s simple, Dincht,” Seifer explains. “There’s nowhere else for me to go. Why the hell would I come back here if I had  _any_  other choice?”  
  
“I know  _that_ ,” Zell hisses, feeling nettled.  
  
“What’s more pathetic,” Seifer continues, closing his book and getting up from his seat, “is that you  _do_  have some place else to go.” He strides past Zell, and his lips hint at that superior smirk he always used to wear. “And yet you remain here.”  
  
He exits the library, leaving Zell to stand in the aisles by himself, fuming.  
  
  
  
5.  ****  
  
He doesn’t hear from the others much anymore.  
  
Selphie went back to Trabia to help with the restoration right after the war; she didn’t want to return to Balamb at all. Zell gets an occasional email or overly-emoticoned text message from her, proving that she’s her usual cheerful self - or that she’s determined that they think so, anyway. Zell can’t say he’s unhappy about her absence - cheerfulness is something he just can’t abide these days. Not that he’s  _happy_  about it, either. He doesn’t really feel much about it. Or about anything.  
  
Nobody seems to ever know what Irvine is up to, so Zell has quit asking. Squall is back to his normal quiet self - except when Rinoa’s around, and it becomes sickly obvious how in love they are, which is more than enough to put Zell off hanging around them. Not that it’s often, anyway, because Rinoa isn’t allowed in Garden for the most part.  
  
Quistis has pulled away from him, too, after initially clinging to him with such desperation. Zell figures she needed someone to latch on to, she was so frail for so long after that last battle, and for whatever reason it was him. Zell couldn’t number the nights where she cried herself to sleep in his bed, which had suited him fine, since it gave him an excuse not to sleep, which he wouldn’t have done anyway. But those interludes became fewer and far between, and eventually stopped altogether; Quistis was recovering, pulling herself together. Or maybe she’d just found someone else’s shoulder better suited to her.  
  
Zell doesn’t care much either way. He’s not jealous, and he doesn’t pine for her company, which was mostly depressing during those times anyway. He doesn’t feel much of anything at all.  
  
  
  
6.  ****  
  
“Good morning, Zell,” Rebekah says to him with a smile, the same way she does almost every day when he shows up at the library.  
  
He nods in greeting, and sets a few books on the counter. Rebekah starts to scan them back into the library computer system.  
  
“Oh, Zell,” she says before he can take off into the refuge of the quiet aisles of books, “I, um… I have something for you.”  
  
She pulls something out from under the desk and hands it to him. Zell stares at the little card for a moment or two.  
  
“It’s a library key card,” she explains, when he doesn’t say anything. “It’s so you can come and go, you know, without having to wait for me to open up in the morning. Or if you feel like staying late, you can lock up when you’re done. I asked my supervisor and she cleared it.”  
  
“Oh,” is all Zell can say, feeling a little bewildered. Sure, he spends a lot of time in the library these days - it’s one of the few places in Garden he can be assured of some quiet - but he didn’t expect Rebekah would take notice like this. Even if everyone was saying she had a crush on him.  
  
She’s waiting for him to reply, eyes wide. She’s pretty. And sweet. And nothing else.  
  
“This is great,” Zell says, trying to sound enthusiastic. “Thanks. I was sure you must be sick of seeing me hanging around every morning.”  
  
“Of course not!” she scoffs, her cheeks pink. She beams at him; he can’t quite work up a smile in return, so he just nods, tucking the card into his pocket.  
  
  
  
7.  ****  
  
“Have you ever thought about teaching, Zell?”  
  
“Teaching?” Zell repeats. “Um… I guess I haven’t, no.”  
  
“A lot of our graduate SeeDs are considering it nowadays,” Cid tells him, sipping from a cup of tea. “There’s so few real-world missions nowadays for you lot. And with the recent influx of new students, our teaching staff is being stretched a bit thin.”  
  
Zell doesn’t know why Cid is telling him this. He fidgets in his seat, feeling awkward. This isn’t an official meeting of any sort; just a cup of tea with the headmaster. But Cid obviously has something to say to him.  
  
“A lot of our SeeDs find that taking on a class or two helps fill up some of their downtime, so they don’t get too bored here.”  
  
“I’m not… really the teaching type,” Zell says.  
  
“Are you sure? I’m not suggesting you go for full instructorhood,” Cid explains. “You wouldn’t be a preceptor or anything like that. Maybe a defense class, or something like that. One or two days a week. You’re the only martial artist we have around here right now, so your expertise would be invaluable.”  
  
Zell knows what this is about. Cid can see that he’s drifting. He’s had a lot of downtime over the last six months or so; real SeeD missions were few and far between. Zell has failed to find anything to fill that void, and Cid has taken notice.  
  
“I guess I can… think about it,” he replies with a shrug.  
  
“Good, good,” Cid says, smiling warmly at him. “More tea?”  
  
  
  
8.  ****  
  
In summer, the beaches around Balamb are always full of people. The ones near town with tourists and locals enjoying the weather; the ones further out, with cadets and SeeDs from Garden taking advantage of the terrain to do some training. Zell doesn’t go to the beach once that first summer.  
  
But when autumn rolls around and the nights start getting cool, and the ocean breezes sharp and cutting, he makes it a habit to get out once or twice a week. Sometimes during the day, but mostly at night, when it’s so dark and quiet out on the sand that the roaring sound of the waves seems to become Zell’s entire world. As a kid, he always loved the beach, would swim in the ocean for hours. These days, it’s all about the solitude, the quiet, the feeling of being a tiny person in the face of a vast, vast universe.  
  
Once in a while he finds other footprints besides his, wandering up and down the dunes, or just going down to the water’s edge and then back up again. But he never runs into anyone else down there in the dead of night. Which is perfect.  
  
  
9.  ****  
  
“Are you doing anything for Christmas, Zell?” Quistis asks him, in line at the cafeteria one day.  
  
Zell pauses. He’s so sick of that question. “Just going home to see Ma,” he answers, and Quistis smiles and nods.  
  
“If you’re going to be free for New Year’s, we’re having a little get-together,” she tells him, loading her plate with salad. “Just the usual gang and a few others. Cid’s letting us use his office. You ought to come,” she suggests.  
  
“I’ll probably be out of Garden,” Zell says.  
  
“That’s too bad. None of us see you much anymore,” Quistis replies, and the unspoken disappointment in her tone sets Zell’s stomach to churning.  
  
He’d really like to not have to lie to her. But she’s too distant lately for him to feel safe confiding in her. Even his mum wouldn’t understand, would be hurt if he told her all he wants to do over the holidays is to sit alone in his room and read or listen to music, to not be disturbed. So he’d lied to her, too. He’s getting to be a pro at it.  
  
  
10.  ****  
  
Christmas comes and goes without incident.  
  
Ma sends his present in the mail: a set of long-sleeve thermal shirts for the unusually chilly Balamb winter this year, and a framed picture for his room of her, Zell, and his granddad, taken just a few months before he died. One practical present, one sentimental - she does the same thing every year. Zell stares at the picture for a long time, studying his carefree kid face and trying to figure out exactly what it is that is present in the picture that the war robbed him of. He can’t decide where to display the picture, and eventually just sets it facedown on his desk.  
  
Quistis comes by the day before to give him something as well, which surprises him. He feels shameful admitting he didn’t get her anything, didn’t really even think about it. “Please, don’t worry about it,” she tells him, looking embarrassed. “I didn’t get anyone else anything. None of us really did the present thing this year. But I just… kind of wanted to give this to you.”  
  
He opens it, and it’s a book - not a new one, a well-used one, the corners worn away, the spine faded. “It’s my favorite book from when I was a teenager,” Quistis explains. “I know you like to read, and the school library doesn’t carry it, so I thought you might like it.”  
  
“Thanks,” Zell says dumbly after he finds his voice again. “It’s very… thank you.”  
  
Quistis only shrugs, like she hasn’t just given him something extremely touching and thoughtful. Zell doesn’t even know what to say to her. The fact that she did this for him, when they haven’t been close lately, moves him in a way that has been unfamiliar to him for a while now.  
  
“I’ll see you after the new year, then,” she says to him as she’s leaving. “Have fun in Balamb!”  
  
He assures her that he will, and shuts the door. And then sinks down to the floor, still clutching the book, feeling horribly guilty and hateful.  

 

 


	2. Annexed

11.  ****  
  
Zell finds some solace in the fact that he’s not the only one around Garden having trouble adjusting. The growing frequency of his middle-of-the-night encounters with Seifer makes that plain.  
  
“You shouldn’t be in here,” he says grouchily one night, looking up from his book to find Seifer wandering into the library at half past two in the morning.  
  
“You’re in here.”  
  
“I’ve got a keycard,” Zell says. “You’re trespassing.”  
  
“It’s nice in here at night,” Seifer says, and then goes to a table on the other side of the room and begins laying out his books and folders. He’s working on some kind of research project, Zell doesn’t know what it is, but he does know that Seifer spends almost as much time in the library lately as he does. Which is part of the reason he’s started taking advantage of his late-night clearance and coming here during off-hours. How Seifer figured out what he was doing to copy him, he doesn’t know.  
  
“I’m going to get in trouble if anyone finds out I let you in here,” Zell says.  
  
“How’s that my problem?”  
  
“Maybe it wouldn’t be totally a bad thing. They could take away your SeeD.”  
  
“Yeah, what a huge loss  _that_  would be,” Seifer drawls. “I wouldn’t get to finish all this  _fascinating_  research Quistis has piled up for me.”  
  
“Can’t you just do it during the day like a normal person?” Zell grumbles bad-temperedly, thoroughly distracted from his book now. This comment makes Seifer look up from his research, giving Zell a wry look.  
  
“Says the guy who comes to the library at two in the morning to read novels,” Seifer points out.  
  
Since Zell can’t argue this, he shuts up for a while, trying to pretend he’s reading his book and thinking wistfully about what it would be like to wreck Seifer’s face with his fists.  
  
  
12.  ****  
  
Teaching is a lot easier than Zell thought it would be. Which is a pleasant change, because not a lot of things are easy for him these days. The kids taking his intermediate- and advanced-level defense classes are older teens mostly, and they’re pretty snotty and cocky for the main part - that suits Zell fine; it means he doesn’t have to baby them or go easy. He’s not in the mood lately to baby anyone.  
  
Just having his Monday and Thursday mornings taken up with classes makes a huge difference - it occupies him more than he expected, it keeps him busy, keeps him from doing too much thinking. Keeps him from wondering too much what life would be like if he actually left Garden.  
  
  
13.  ****  
  
“How many are you up to now?”  
  
Seifer looks up from the page he’s been blankly staring at for the last hour. “What?” he replies groggily.  
  
“You’re researching GFs, right?” Zell asks, not because he’s really all that interested, but because for once he’s sick of just sitting in silence for hours on end. “How many have you found?”  
  
Seifer sighs, shuffling his papers and books aimlessly. “A hundred and two,” he answers, rubbing his eyes. It’s nearly four a.m. and even though Zell is a regular night owl these days, even he’s starting to get drowsy in the quiet, dimly lit library. “Most of them abso-fucking-lutely useless, too. There’s a GF that casts Scan over and over. Where’s the fucking use in that? Just cast it once and be done with it. Fuck,” he finishes, slamming shut the large, moldy-looking book he’s been perusing the past few nights.  
  
Zell goes back to his own book, feeling satisfied. Making sure that Seifer is having a miserable night at least makes him feel a little better about himself.  
  
  
  
14.   
  
Squall finds Zell in the training center early one morning, preparing for his class.  
  
“I think I should warn you, the girls have planned a surprise party for your birthday next week,” he says, which does surprise Zell; he hasn’t even thought about his upcoming birthday, almost forgot about it.  
  
“What? Why? I don’t want one.”  
  
“Yeah, that’s obvious,” Squall says dryly. “But they want to throw you one. They think you’re too anti-social lately.”  
  
“Can’t you talk them out of it?” Zell huffs.  
  
“No, I can’t. And I wouldn’t anyway. I happen to agree with them,” is Squall’s reply.  
  
Zell feels a sudden stab of anger, and he’s about to say something indignant in response, but Squall goes on. “Can you just do everyone a favor and show up and pretend you’re having fun? Quistis and Rinoa are worried about you and they’re fretting. They talk about it all the time. I have to listen to it. All the time.”  
  
“Yeah? And what kind of stuff do they say about me?” Zell says, refraining from adding a bitter “behind my back”.    
  
“They think you’re cold. You don’t hang out with them anymore and you always seem angry. You spend all your time in the library or by yourself. They think you’re depressed,” Squall says.  
  
“I’m not depressed, I’m just-“ Zell begins, stops short. He wants to say he’s just recovering from the war, all the terrible things that happened, the battles, but he doesn’t know if he  _can_  say that. That was nearly a whole year ago. Long past being a valid excuse for his behavior.  
  
“Look,” Squall continues, in a rare fit of talkativeness - he must really think this is important - “I know that people change. Especially war changes people, not always for the better. If you want my opinion…” He pauses, as if waiting for Zell to say he doesn’t want it. “I think you’re more serious than you used to be, not as carefree. That’s not a bad thing in itself. But you do seem really angry.”  
  
“If they could just leave me alone about it-“  
  
“Yeah, well, they won’t,” Squall interrupts. “So just go to the party and try to act like you’re grateful, would you?”  
  
Zell is so shocked by his brusque words that he can’t even form a response before Squall turns and walks away.  
  
  
15.  ****  
  
He shows up at the party for his friends’ sakes, but he can’t make himself enjoy it. The fact that he feels forced into going is enough to strip the fun from it.  
  
When he leaves after only an hour, Quistis follows him down the corridor. “What is wrong with you, Zell?” she hisses at him, not completely drunk, but not sober enough to think twice about confronting him in this way. She grabs his arm to keep him from walking away from her.  
  
“Look,” he tries to tell her, exasperated, “I just… I don’t feel like a party, okay? Go back and have fun with the others.”  
  
“You never feel like anything, do you?”  
  
“I just want some peace and quiet, that’s all,” he says. Quistis stares at him as though she doesn’t even know what she’s looking at.  
  
“How can you want  _quiet?_  How can you even  _stand_  it?” she breathes, gripping his arm painfully tight. “I feel like I’ve got to surround myself with noise just to keep from going mad sometimes. Or I start thinking about… about that place. That horrible… place.”  
  
Quistis is starting to shake. Zell can’t form words. He’s never heard her talk about this before, was terrified to ask, hoped she didn’t feel the need.  
  
“That darkness,” she goes on, trembling; her eyes are wet, and Zell senses a crying spell coming on. “Like… like a terrible smothering blanket. I couldn’t see anything. I couldn’t hear anything. Not even myself.” She grabs him with both hands, and starts to sink to the floor; Zell slides down with her, trying to keep her from collapsing. “It was like I didn’t exist at all. Like if I stopped concentrating on that fact for even a second, then I might just… vanish right out of existence.”  
  
She’s sobbing into his shirt, and Zell feels cold and sick. Is that what time compression was like for her? He puts a hand on the back of her head and strokes her hair gently.  
  
“Don’t you remember what it was like?” she asks.  
  
“No,” Zell lies.  
  
  
  
16.  ****  
  
Before Zell knows it, he’s attending his second SeeD graduation ball. This time as a graduate, an instructor. It’s been a long time since he had to wear his uniform, and it itches, feels like it’s smothering him.  
  
There are only six graduates this year, plus Seifer, whose post-war induction into SeeD last summer meant that this was technically his graduation ball, too. But he’s nowhere to be seen. Quistis points this out when she approaches Zell halfway into the night, before he can find some excuse to leave the party.  
  
“Can you go find him for me?” she asks Zell, looking somewhat exhausted and haggard. Zell knows she’s been dealing with Seifer the whole day, and he feels some pity for her.  
  
“Why?”  
  
“Well I’d ask Squall, but he’s busy, and I don’t want to draw attention-“  
  
“Not ‘why me’,” Zell says. “Why do you even want him here?”  
  
“If I’m honest, I don’t,” Quistis sighs. “But Headmaster Cid says he’s supposed to be here for the ceremony. So can you please?”  
  
Zell agrees to go, torn between being irritated that he’s got to go looking for Seifer and being relieved that he has an excuse to get out of the ballroom. He knows Seifer won’t have gone far; Quistis has him on a pretty short leash, and he wouldn’t risk getting in real trouble with Garden Administration. Sure enough, Zell only has to go out into the gardens to find Seifer standing in an alcove off the main path, with an expression that says he was really hoping that no one would come to find him.  
  
“Quistis wants you inside,” Zell tells him.  
  
“Trepe wants a lot of things she won’t get. This is one of them,” Seifer says coolly.  
  
Zell is annoyed, but he finds to his surprise that he doesn’t feel any strong urge to pop Seifer one on the nose, like he usually does when they encounter each other. He’s actually kind of sympathetic toward the other man just now. He’d certainly rather be out here than inside at the ball, even if the price of his escape is having to tolerate Seifer.  
  
“What do you want?” Seifer asks after a few minutes, evidently not satisfied with Zell’s continued presence. “Gonna drag me back inside like a naughty runaway?”  
  
“What would be the point? You don’t want to go and no one in there wants you around. It’d be lose-lose all round,” Zell says flatly.  
  
“Gee, don’t pull your punches, Dincht.”  
  
“I’m only telling you what you already know,” Zell spits. “Quistis and the rest only put up with you being at Garden because they have to. Nobody actually wants you here. And you sure as fuck don’t want to be here.”  
  
Seifer is giving him a strange look - a stare that Zell can’t define. He doesn’t seem angry or offended. Zell hadn’t said anything Seifer didn’t know. “Then the question is,” he says softly, “why the hell am I still here?”  
  
“Just go back to the stupid party,” Zell growls, turning to leave. He was wrong; he prefers the ball to this.  
  
  
17.  ****  
  
The invasion starts out small.  
  
First Seifer is at his table. His piles of books, papers, charts and graphs taking up all of Zell’s precious space. The first time it happens, Zell overlooks it. The second time, he tries to make his displeasure known through scowling and mutinous grumbles.  
  
“Do you have to sit  _here?_ ” he snarls one day - but lowly, under his breath; it’s the middle of the day and there are students all around them.  
  
Seifer only shrugs, looking totally unconcerned. “Do  _you?_ ” is his retort.  
  
“It was my spot first,” Zell mumbles -  _way to go, very mature,_  he tells himself. Seifer rolls his eyes and tells him to just deal with it.  
  
But Zell doesn’t want to deal with it. He wants to be left completely alone almost all of the time - which most people seem to have finally grasped; but Seifer is insistent on invading his space, probably only because one of the few pleasures he’ll ever have is knowing that Zell can’t legitimately do anything to stop him from sitting wherever he likes, even if the other man is thoroughly pissed off about it. After a while, he just gets used to it. He supposes it could be worse - at least Seifer is quiet; he never tries to talk to Zell or really bother him at all (except by with his presence,) so it’s easy to pretend that there’s no one there at all.  
  
  
18.  ****  
  
“You’ve been hanging out with Seifer a lot.”  
  
“We’re not hanging out,” Zell says, looking up from his lunch. Quistis has got her usual salad piled high with veggies on her plate, but she doesn’t set it down on the table, which is good news to Zell, because it means she’s not planning on staying. Just passing by to dispense some unsolicited - unwanted - advice.  
  
“I see you guys together all the time.”  
  
“We just keep ending up… sitting together. That’s all,” Zell tries to explain. It sounds weak, even to him, but there’s nothing else to say. No reasonable way to explain how sitting with Seifer in the library once in a while turned into sitting with Seifer in the library, the cafeteria, and sometimes the Quad during those stupid monthly SeeD meetings that someone decided they should have from now on. Before he knows it, he’s spending more time alone with Seifer than he does alone with himself.  
  
It’s not horrible, either. Being alone with Seifer is no worse than being alone, period.  
  
“I thought you hated him,” Quistis remarks.  
  
“I do,” Zell says, but he thinks,  _just not as much as a lot of other things._  “It’s not like we’re friends or whatever. We don’t even talk. Him being around keeps other people away, which is nice,” he adds, trying to sound flippant. The way Quistis’ expression goes hard, he knows it was the wrong thing to say.  
  
“Do you realize how cynical you’ve become?” she asks in a quiet, almost sad tone. Then she turns and leaves before Zell can get over his shock enough to muster a reply.  
  
  
19.  ****  
  
“I think that concludes the formal evaluation,” Cid says, closing Zell’s file and setting it on the desk in front of him. “By all accounts, you’re an exemplary SeeD and a model instructor. I don’t have any faults to find in your file.”  
  
“Thank you, sir.”  
  
“The evaluations have been.. strange for me this year,” the headmaster admits, sitting back in his chair. “You, Zell, had more real-world experience in your first week as SeeD than most graduates have their entire first year of working. How do I take that into account? What you and your friends did was not a Garden-sanctioned mission, not a test or some kind of training exercise. But I can’t  _not_  take it into account, either.”  
  
Zell shifts in his seat, uncomfortable. He’d rather that Cid doesn’t bring it up at all.  
  
“Your students all seem to like you very well,” is Cid’s next comment.  
  
“Good. I mean, I’m glad,” Zell says.  
  
“Their comments are much the same across the board. You’re fair, knowledgable, and extremely competent. You have a lot of respect from your students. They say you’re not only good at teaching, but that you strive to make sure that everyone in your class achieves excellence.”  
  
“Oh,” Zell mutters, feeling embarrassed. “I wouldn’t have put it that way, but… that’s nice to know.”  
  
Cid pauses, as though he’s thinking of what to say next. Or perhaps how to say it. “They also say that you’re stern,” he remarks. “Very no-nonsense. Your fellow SeeDs have made similar comments.”  
  
A sudden coldness seizes Zell. The headmaster has been complimenting him ceaselessly since this interview began; there is the flip side he’s been waiting for. “Work is work,” Zell says defensively, “and I think it should be taken seriously, that’s all.”  
  
“I agree with you. However, not all things are work,” Cid says with emphasis.  
  
Zell could argue that point, but instead he just keeps his mouth shut, and nods in agreement.

  
  
20.  ****  
  
“Change is pretty much inevitable. People always change. Pretty much all wars do is force people to change. It’s only idiots who have the naive idea that things can be the same afterward, that everything will be all rosy and perfect like it always was,” Seifer says.  
  
Zell stares at him over the top of his cards. “What are you talking about, and why do you think I care?”  
  
“I thought you’d appreciate the irony of everything. The fact that the only person in this whole goddamn place I can stand to be around is you,” Seifer goes on. He traces his finger around the edge of his hand of cards, selects one, and puts it on the table. “Because you’ve changed. I think for the better. You don’t sugar-coat things. You don’t take shit. You’re a lot more of a realist.”  
  
Zell is certain the remarks are meant to insult him, to rile him up, because what Seifer’s describing are qualities that are also, coincidentally, found in himself - and if it were a year and a half ago, Zell would be fuming at any implication that him and Seifer are anything alike. Instead, surprisingly, he finds himself filled with a strange sense of relief. “Just play fucking cards, Almasy,” he grouches, folding his hand.

 


	3. Open Doors

21.

Despite what he’d say if anyone officially asked, Zell wasn’t at all bothered by the lack of field work as the months after the war started to roll into years. Balamb Garden had a very spare handful of trained SeeDs left afterwards, and even with the sporadic addition of new graduates from Galbadia and Trabia Gardens after the first year, the number steadily, if gradually, kept declining. But even so, there was rarely enough field work to be done to keep them all occupied, and Zell was happy to leave it to the others - fresher, more eager to please minds than his own. It wasn’t that it disturbed him, the way it did some of the ones who had left - the fighting, the pain, the stress of life and death. But if he never had to see a battlefield again, he’d be just as happy.  
  
  
  
22.

  
“Galbadia Garden is only sending one cadet this year, but Trabia has  _eight_  who are ready to take the exam in June. Together with ours, that makes fourteen, and we don’t have enough preceptors to go around. So that’s why I need all hands on deck for the field exam this year.”  
  
Zell grimaces a little, tries not to look completely repulsed by the idea, and probably fails. “Yeah, I understand, but…”  
  
“But what? You don’t want to?” Quistis says sharply. Her whole person has become sharper since she became head of Garden Administration. Still, Zell feels the sting of her remark.  
  
“Can’t Trabia send some of their SeeDs to oversee the exam?”  
  
“They’re sending one, but they don’t have any more to spare. Look, Zell, I asked you nicely to be polite about it, but this really isn’t optional. We need every available SeeD for this mission. Or do you want it to end up the way ours did?”  
  
“Fine, I’ll help,” he mutters, and Quistis looks smug.  
  
  
23.

  
The exam goes as well as can be expected, even with Quistis' foreboding overpreparation. Zell is actually impressed by most of this lot of cadets - the Trabians have clearly worked hard to keep their education and training at level with Balamb, considering they only reopened their Garden less than a year ago. The SeeD who arrives with them is a tall, eternally perky brunette, whose cheery smile reminds Zell so much of Selphie that he actually begins to miss her. He’s fallen out of touch with… well, with everybody.  
  
“Your lot are pretty good,” he admits as he’s sitting with the Trabian girl - Neena - and a few other SeeDs, working on their exam evaluations. “I’d pass them all.”  
  
“As well they should be,” is her reply, along with a dimpled smile. “I work them like dogs to be as good as you Balamb lot. Not that they need me pushing them; they’re all quite competitive. Selphie goes on and on about making Trabia Garden the best Garden of them all, and the students take her quite seriously.”  
  
She says this half-jokingly, but it still starts an argument between her and the Balamb SeeDs. Zell tunes out of it, taking his time on the evals, carefully wording all of his comments as he steadily makes progress.  
  
  
  
24.

  
Zell never really thinks about the fact that Seifer’s dorm is just three doors down from his until the other man comes barging into his room at half past midnight. Well, not really barging - he slips through the door very quietly, and then shuts it just as quietly behind him, pausing as though he’s listening for footsteps in the hallway outside.  
  
“Uhh,” Zell says, feeling baffled, “what are you doing?”  
  
“Trepe’s looking for me.”  
  
“So?” Zell tries to convey the huge amount of irritation he’s feeling with his tone. Seifer looks back over his shoulder.  
  
“So let me hide out in here.”  
  
“No,” is Zell’s immediate response. “Get out of my room. Anyway, you can’t just come barging in here-“  
  
“Door was open,” Seifer remarks.  
  
“That’s not the point,” Zell snaps, even though Seifer’s probably right. He rarely locks his room door - doesn’t like the feeling of being trapped. But that doesn’t give Seifer the right to come strolling in any time he feels like it. “Are you drunk?” he asks next, which is a useless question, because he knows Seifer is; he’d watched the other man guzzling drinks earlier that night at the ball, before he himself had left early. Not that he really blamed Seifer. Being dogged by Quistis and the security staff the whole night would make Zell want to drink, too.  
  
“No,” Seifer denies the charge, sitting slowly down on the floor.  
  
“I’m texting Quistis,” Zell announces, grabbing his phone from the bedside table. He doesn’t really want to summon her to his room at this hour, he just wants to threaten Seifer into leaving. Instead, Seifer scrambles across the small room and tries to grab Zell’s phone out of his hand. Despite his state, his balance is fairly good; he nearly gets it.  
  
“Don’t do that,” Seifer says commandingly, but he gives up on appropriating Zell’s phone after the shorter man outmaneuvers him with some nimble weaving movements. “She won’t think to look for me here. Just let me stay.”  
  
“And I’m supposed to, what, just go to sleep with you sitting there watching me?” Zell hisses. Not that he’d been planning to go to sleep anyway, at least not any time soon. He isn’t even undressed from the ball; he’s still wearing his full SeeD uniform, the collar high and tight around his neck.  
  
Seifer looks at him like he can see right through him. And he probably can.  
  
“Fine,  _whatever,_ ” Zell spits, frustrated. It’s not like he can  _force_  Seifer to leave - he should be able to, but he can’t. Instead, he spends most of the night laying wide awake, half-hoping Seifer will drunkenly try to climb into his bed so he’ll have an excuse to beat the other man to a pulp. But Seifer just sits beside the door until the graduation festivities, which they can both hear in the corridor, are finally over; and shortly before dawn, he slips back out of Zell’s room just as quietly as he slipped in. And still Zell lays awake for hours, unable to sleep.  
  
  
  
25.

It starts to become a problem when Seifer annexes Zell’s dorm room, the same quiet, subtle way he’s done to all of Zell’s other spaces.  
  
Well, Zell wishes it were a problem. But he’s mostly unbothered by it on the whole.  
  
Still, he feels he should put up some kind of a fight, for the sake of not being the complete doormat that Seifer probably thinks he is. “Why do I keep finding you here?!” he growls angrily one evening when he comes in to find Seifer lounging on his bed like he owns it, playing a handheld video game. He doesn’t even answer, just sort of shrugs.  
  
“You can’t just come waltzing in here whenever you feel like it, okay? I don’t go barging into your room at all hours, do I?”  
  
“You’re the one keeps leaving your door wide open,” is Seifer’s reply as he buttonmashes with both hands.  
  
Zell grinds his teeth. He’s not so stupid as to think that Seifer only means that literally. But he hates it when the other man talks in metaphors. So fucking pretentious.  
  
Most of the time, though, he doesn’t even care enough to fight. Seifer comes and goes as he pleases, wandering in and out of Zell’s personal space at leisure. If Zell’s honest, the quiet presence of another person is a nice change sometimes from the otherwise monotonous white noise of his every day life. He’d never admit that to Seifer, of course - but then, he doubts the other man would be around so much unless he thought the same way.  
  
  
  
26.

  
“So what’s the deal with you and Nida?”  
  
“What do you mean? There’s nothing going on there.”  
  
“I think  _he’d_  like there to be.”  
  
Quistis scoffs the comment away, stirring her soup. Neena, across the table from her, gives her a sly expression that suggests she’s not giving up so easily. The Trabian girl has only been in Balamb for a month and her and Quistis are already becoming fast friends - so fast, in fact, that Zell’s been hearing rumors of a different sort about the blonde’s preferences, not that he believes that’s the real reason Quistis is scoffing. “Go on, you can tell me,” Neena says, while Zell, at the next table, tries to find the paperwork he has in front of him more interesting than the conversation going on beside him. “Do you fancy someone? Has poor Nida got a chance?”  
  
“He doesn’t, but not because I fancy anyone else,” Quistis replies.  
  
Someone drops a lunch tray on Zell’s table. He doesn’t even look up; he knows it’s Seifer. No one else would sit with him when there are plenty of free tables around the cafeteria. No one else ever really sits with him, period.  
  
One table over, Neena is still pitching for the pilot; she has a high, chirpy voice, kind of like Selphe - the kind of voice that cuts right through the majorly boring analytical reports Zell had been actually making some progress on before the two woman sat down next to him. “-if he tried to make a move on you,” she says, stuffing a forkful of noodles in her mouth.  
  
“If he tried, I’d shove my whip so far up his ass he’d be picking Malboro tentacles out of his teeth,” Quistis replies coolly. Across from Zell, Seifer looks up, raising an eyebrow. He catches Zell’s eye for a second, and Zell looks back down at his paperwork.  
  
“That’s no good, he’d probably enjoy it,” Neena says in response.    
  
Zell snorts in laughter before he can stop himself. “Zell!” Quistis says sharply, as both her and Neena suddenly turn to look at him.  
  
“Sorry,” he apologizes, trying to wipe the smile from his face. “I shouldn’t have been eavesdropping…”  
  
“No, it’s not that. I just don’t even remember the last time I heard you laugh,” Quistis admits. She looks a little bewildered and surprised, and Zell feels horribly caught out all of a sudden.  
  
“I didn’t even know you could,” Neena adds, but her tone is more teasing, as is her smirk. “I’ve never seen you smile or joke or anything.”  
  
“I… I make jokes,” Zell says defensively. He tries not to sound accusatory, to play it cool, but he realizes with a start that  _he_  doesn’t remember the last time he really laughed. Not out of bitterness or frustration, but because something was actually humorous.  
  
“Not funny ones,” Seifer chimes in.  
  
“Excuse me, did anyone ask for your opinion? Not that you can give one anyway, seeing as you have no sense of humor whatsoever,” Zell spits back.  
  
Quistis looks amused now. “You should smile more, Dincht,” Neena says, giving him a sunny grin herself. “You’re cute.”  
  
Everybody’s suddenly looking at Zell, and he feels hot and uncomfortable. He pushes his papers into a sloppy pile and then snatches them as he stands up from the table. “Yeah, thanks,” he mutters, not sure if she’s making fun of him or genuinely complimenting him - and not sure which bothers him more. He hears Seifer chuckling as he walks away.  
  
“Aw, I think you embarrassed him. Poor baby.”  
  
Zell wants to tell Seifer to shut up, and maybe slap him on the back of the head for good measure, but that would involve turning back around and revealing the fact that his face is totally red. So he just leaves instead.  
  
  
  
27.

  
“Oh, Zell, you remembered,” his mum crows when he wanders into the kitchen with a gift in hand.  
  
“Happy birthday, Ma.”  
  
She ushers him inside and fusses over him for a while, and he lets her, because he hasn’t visited in four months and the guilt finally got to him. It’s not on purpose; he really has been busy, and even when he lived at Garden before the war he didn’t visit home all that often either. If he visits more than usual, his mum will start to think something’s wrong.  
  
She cries a bit over the gift he got her - a pretty bejeweled bracelet from Esthar - and feeds him and gossips about the neighbors, about whom Zell couldn’t care much less.   _So-and-so’s niece from Dollet is staying in town for the summer, you know, and she’s so cute - oh, that’s right, she’s just about your age, honey-_  Zell has heard it all before, and no matter how much he insists to her that he’s too occupied with work right now to think about girls, he’ll hear it again.  
  
“Are you sure you don’t want to stay the night?” she asks for the third time, as night falls and he’s getting ready to head back in to Garden.  
  
“I wish I could, but I’ve got class early in the morning,” he says. It’s only half a lie - he really does have class in the morning. She looks disappointed, but Zell gives her a kiss on the cheek and then leaves anyway. How is he supposed to explain how oppressive that room upstairs feels to him? That room that’s a perfect showcase of his teenage self, since she hasn’t moved a thing since he went away. The only things that are different are what he’s changed himself - taken down the Garden posters, put away the sports equipment, and moved the framed picture of his granddad from the wall to the table in the corner, where he can’t see it when he’s trying (and mostly failing) to sleep at night. Doesn’t do much good; not seeing it doesn’t prevent him from thinking about all the war stories his granddad used to tell, the advice he gave, which failed to include some of the finer details - like the way you’d never have a good dream again, or the way you can pick out the smell of blood a mile away, or the way you start to see the ghosts of people you’ve killed everywhere - in the grocery store clerk’s smile, or the laugh of the kid running down the street, or the pretty brown eyes of the girl who’s just in town for the summer.  
  
  
  
28.

  
“So. Centra, huh?” Neena says conversationally, fanning herself with the file folder. “I’ve never been there. What’s it like?”  
  
“Just boring,” Zell tells her, still reading his itinerary. She giggles at him - she does that a lot.  
  
“Who else is on the team?”  
  
“One cadet, Matt Briggs,” Zell says, scanning the informational packet Quistis had given him, “and SeeD Duran. On the other team, SeeDs McNab, Lants, and Candria, and cadet Gina Sweets.”  
  
Neena makes a face at him. “I’d rather have McNab on our team. Nida’s such a bore. All he ever talks about is flying.”  
  
Zell only shrugs. Personally, he’s satisfied with the team assignments - if he’s lucky, Nida and Neena will be talking so much between the two of them that they won’t expect him to chime in.  
  
“Do you think it will be dangerous?” she asks him, sounding excited.  
  
“I dunno. There’s no way to tell. We’ve explored ruins in that area before, and they weren’t much to write home about.”  
  
“Hmm,” she says, biting her lip. She looks giddy and nervous all at the same time; Zell knows that this is her first real field mission with Balamb Garden, and knowing her, she’s probably eager to try and prove herself, to measure up to Zell and his lot. He wants to tell her it’s not necessary to do something stupid like try and impress him, but he doesn’t know how to say it without sounding like a pretentious asshole.  
  
“Well, I’m gonna go grab some food,” Neena announces, jumping up from her seat with the air of someone who has too much nervous energy to burn. “I’ll see you on Monday morning, then!”  
  
“Don’t be late,” he warns. She gives him a sloppy, joking sort of salute as she retreats, and Zell is tempted to get up and join her - feeling, for once, like some company might do him good - but she’s already gone before he can think about it twice.  
  
  
  
29.

  
Seifer strolls in late one night while Zell is packing. “What do you want?” he asks snippily, irritated by Seifer’s presence - more irritated by the fact that he’s not even surprised to find the other man in his room.  
  
“Going somewhere?”  
  
“I’m off to Centra.”  
  
“What for?” Seifer says, managing to ask the question without sounding the tiniest bit actually curious about the answer.  
  
“None of your business what for,” Zell replies, cramming things into his duffel bag.  
  
“Okay,” Seifer says, holding up his hands. Zell watches him go to the mini-fridge in the corner and take out a soda. In only a few months’ time, Seifer has managed to make it seem like he belongs here.  
  
“There’s some ruins or something they want checked out,” Zell mutters with ill grace, feeling somehow forced into explaining even though Seifer hasn’t said more than five words to him since he came in. He’s shifting through the snacks in Zell’s cupboard now, and Zell wonders if he’s planning to stay the night - again - or if he just came to steal from him.  
  
“How long are you going to be gone?”  
  
“Why do you care?!” Zell snaps, his growing aggravation suddenly peaking. Seifer looks up from the bag of crisps he’s been pondering.  
  
“Just making conversation,” he replies, unfazed by Zell’s brusqueness. Of course, he’s probably used to Zell shouting and snapping at him. Forever telling him to get out, go away, leave him alone. What’s it going to take to make Seifer actually listen to him?  
  
“Can you please leave?”  
  
“Sorry?” Seifer looks up.   _Now_  he looks surprised.  
  
“ _Leave._  Get out of my room. You’re an annoyance. What are you even doing here, anyway? Just come to pester me?”  
  
“Nope. Just came for snacks,” Seifer replies, eternally nonchalant. It’s gratingly annoying how utterly unaffected he is by Zell’s anger. It makes Zell want to punch something. Seifer’s face, for a start. Instead, he bites down his anger, and continues packing.  
  
  
  
30.

  
“Dincht, can I ask you a question?” Neena says curiously.  
  
“Is it about the mission?” Zell replies, flipping through his file again. One more time. Not that there’s much there; it’s a search-and-map mission, it couldn’t be more simple.  
  
“Um… no, it’s… personal,” she says hesitantly. Zell looks over at her. She’s been packing and unpacking her weapons, rearranging her gear - she’s nervous. Neena is chatty even in the best of moods. Today she’s running nonstop at the mouth, but Zell doesn’t mind, since she mostly doesn’t seem to expect him to join the conversation.  
  
“Well, go ahead,” he says, seeing no reason to deny her asking. He doesn’t have to answer, after all.  
  
“Are you and Seifer Almasy close friends?”  
  
“We’re not friends at all.”  
  
“Oh,” she says, as if surprised. Zell shuts his folder.  
  
“I guess you could say we’re… close,” he admits reluctantly, because that’s probably the way it appears - which is why she’s asking. “I don’t care if you talk shit about him if that’s what you mean…”  
  
Neena giggles. “Uh, no, it’s not that. It’s… maybe… the opposite?” she says, as if thinking about it. “Before I came to Balamb, all I knew about him was what I’d heard, which was… not flattering, I guess. But I was surprised. He’s a lot more… more…”  
  
“More?” Zell repeats. Where is she going with this?  
  
Neena is smiling at him now. She does that a lot - not that Zell minds or anything. “Mellow,” is the word she finally picks, catching Zell off-guard. “I don’t know. It’s like… it’s hard to hate him as much as I wanted to before I met him, for what he did to Trabia Garden. He’s so, kind of, tame… it doesn’t feel worth the bother.”  
  
Zell watches her start to repack all the gear she’s been arranging. He’s never thought about it - what other people think of Seifer. He tries really hard not to think about Seifer at all, despite the other man’s continual presence in Zell’s periphery.  
  
“I was surprised I guess when I saw that you guys were friends,” Neena goes on. “You guys are way different. You’re so…”  
  
“What? I’m so what?” Zell prompts, after she cuts herself off abruptly. She might be blushing - Zell can’t tell, she’s turned the other way now.  
  
“You’re kind of intense,” she finally spills, shrugging. “Not, like, in a bad way, you know?”  
  
No, Zell doesn't know. He feels tongue-tied all of a sudden. Of all the things people have said about him - and they’ve not all been complimentary - intense is a first. Neena’s attitude suggests she means it in a good way, but before Zell can even begin to wonder how, the train lurches and begins to slow. Neena’s smile is replaced by an expression of panic, as she tries to grab all her things which are still spread out on the seat.  
  
“Shit, we can’t be here already?!”  
  
“Calm down,” Zell suggests, watching her cram ration packets into the side pockets of her backpack.  
  
“I’m gonna get docked points  _already_  and it’s only my first field mission…!” Neena grouches under her breath, clanking bottles of potion together as she packs with haste. Zell, satisfied that her attention isn’t on him anymore, only smiles.  
  
  
  



	4. Talk About It

31.

There are a lot of things Zell doesn’t remember. Some things lost a long time ago. Some things he doesn’t really care to remember.  
  
“Can you tell me what happened, Zell?” Dr. Kadowaki asks, bustling in just a minute or two after he wakes up.  
  
It’s a trick question - Zell  _knows_  what happened, but his throat doesn’t seem to be working; he doesn’t say anything. The doc appears to be expecting this, and she hands him a paper cup of water.  
  
“How are you feeling?”  
  
“Umm,” he manages to croak, but that’s as far as he gets. The doctor checks his forehead and looks at his eyes, and then Zell sits up a little and sips his water.  
  
“I think you’re still a little scrambled,” Kadowaki tells him, making some notes on a chart by the bed. It suddenly, sharply occurs to Zell that he’s in the infirmary, which is not the last place he remembers being.  
  
“Briggs,” he says shakily.  
  
“Briggs is alright,” Kadowaki says.  
  
“And that other cadet - what’s her name-“  
  
“Gina Sweets,” the doctor supplies. “She’s fine, too. Both of the cadets were unharmed - minor cuts and scrapes. You, however, got your brain rattled pretty good. This is the fourth time you’ve asked me about them already.”  
  
He takes her word for it - he certainly feels rattled.  
  
“Do you remember what happened?” is the doc’s next question.  
  
He does - vividly - but his throat tightens up again. He just nods. Dr. Kadowaki gives him a sad sort of look. “Just sit here and rest a while,” she says. “I’ll come back and check on you in a little bit.”  
  
She’s not even out the door before Zell drifts back into sleep.  
  
It’s three days before his head clears enough for him to feel lucid; he’s had concussions before, but this one takes the cake. The doc wasn’t wrong - he got his head pretty good and scrambled. Still, he’s had worse.    
  
Quistis comes to see him one morning. Her face is pale and she looks wan - and more human than she’s looked in months. “We need to debrief,” she says, all business. “I came in yesterday to see you, but you were… kind of out of it.”  
  
“Yeah, sure, I understand,” Zell says, and he follows her upstairs to Cid’s office, where Xu and the headmaster are also waiting. The hard set of their expressions says that they’ve already heard the story he’s about to tell them - from the cadets, of course, he thinks a moment later; and whoever else survived, if there was anyone. He hasn’t asked yet. No one seems eager to offer that information.  
  
“I’m going to take you off active duty until Kadowaki clears you,” Cid tells him at the end of the meeting - not that that means much anyway, because Zell was barely on active duty as it were - that trip to Centra was his first honest-to-god SeeD work in months, and naturally it was a disaster. “Your classes have also been suspended for the time being. Take your time getting back, okay? There’s no rush, you know.”  
  
The doctor insists that he remain in the infirmary until she gives him a clean bill of health, and Zell can’t but admit that he doesn’t feel a hundred percent, even though his bones have mended, the burns healed over with shiny new skin, and the gash that ran from above his right eyebrow all the way across his face to his other ear is barely a fine line now. In a week, there won’t even be any evidence of how close he came to dying - again - at least, not on the outside. The scars on his soul still feel pretty raw.  
  
No matter - he was one of the lucky ones, wasn’t he?  
  
  
  
32.

Zell waits until the dead of night to slip out of the infirmary. He’s not  _exactly_  escaping - the doctor did say he could leave in the morning; he’s just stretching her definition of “morning” a little. Six nights is enough; he needs out of that place. He needs to be back in his own room, his own space, where if he chooses to sit up all night, restless, it won’t be marked down in a chart.  
  
Of course, he forgets that his space is not entirely his own these days.  
  
“What are you doing here?” Seifer asks, putting down his book when Zell slides quietly into the room - and actually sounding curious, for once; Zell’s sudden appearance has evidently taken him by surprise. It’s strange to actually have a reaction out of him.  
  
“I live here,” Zell says flatly.  
  
“Yeah, thanks, captain obvious. Shouldn’t you be off in Centra? I thought you didn’t come back until Monday.”  
  
Zell feels a faint sense of surprise that Seifer actually knows that. So he listens sometimes. He clearly hasn’t heard what happened, doesn’t know that Zell spent most of the last week in the infirmary. Zell wonders if anyone knows. He hasn’t even seen anyone besides Quistis and Dr. Kadowaki since he returned.  
  
“Woah,” Seifer says in shock as Zell moves toward the bed and into the dim light cast by the bedside lamp. He’s staring at the raw, pink burn patches on Zell’s skin - his right arm is covered in them; his left only peppered. They’ll still take a day or two to fade completely, but they look a hell of a lot better than they did three days ago, when Zell woke up for the first time. “Someone got the jump on you, Dincht,” Seifer says.  
  
“Yeah,” is the only reply Zell can muster. Despite the niggling restlessness that has been plaguing him during his convalescence, all Zell wants to do is sleep - just sleep for days without interruption. He climbs into bed - ignoring Seifer, who is laying on the far side of the bed and watching him with equal parts bafflement and curiosity - and yanks the covers over his head.  
  
“I guess you’ll be telling me to get out of your room now,” Seifer remarks, from somewhere outside Zell’s cocoon of blankets.  
  
“Seifer, I don’t give a fuck what you do.”  
  
“Fine, then, I’ll stay.”  
  
Zell doesn’t bother to argue. He can’t win with Seifer - whatever his reason, the other man will stay if he wants to stay. Besides, though he’d die before admitting it, Seifer’s presence is exactly the thing Zell decides he needs at the moment - it’s the one thing that can effectively keep him from breaking down and crying right now, like he’s  _so_  desperate to. Instead, he just drifts slowly into sleep.  
  
  
  
33.

He gets caught before he even gets out of the dorms.

“Bit late for a stroll, isn’t it?” Seifer says conversationally.  
  
“What are you, following me now?” Zell spits - but quietly; he doesn’t want to alert anyone. It’s not like he’s  _not_  allowed to go out of Garden whenever he likes, but he’d rather not try and explain his midnight wanderings to anyone he doesn’t have to. Especially Seifer.  
  
“Don’t flatter yourself,” Seifer replies, falling into step beside Zell as he heads toward the garage. “Where you headed?”  
  
“Beach,” Zell says, unsure of why he’s even answering. And really unsure of why Seifer is asking. Probably only because he knows Zell will tell him.  
  
“It’s the middle of October.”  
  
“I am aware of that, yes,” Zell says shortly, walking faster. Maybe Seifer will give up and just let him go. Not that Seifer’s ever been known to do anything that makes Zell’s life easier.  
  
He goes into the parking garage and heads for the side door that will take him out through the mechanic’s bay. Seifer follows, a few steps behind. “Not gonna drive?” he inquires.  
  
“Rather walk.”  
  
“You’re gonna freeze to death,” Seifer says, sounding amused. Zell stops, and turns to look back at him.  
  
“Thanks,  _mum_ ,” he says sarcastically. “Anything else? Are you gonna tail me all the way there? Is that your job now, to be my watchdog?”  
  
Seifer is grinning, obviously amused at Zell’s pique. “As it happens, I was on my way out,” he explains. “Come on, I’ll drive.”  
  
“Not allowed to take Garden vehicles out after hours,” Zell says.  
  
“‘Not allowed’? Dincht, who do you think you’re talking to?” Seifer grabs a set of keys off the rack on the wall, ignoring the sign-out sheet posted next to it. “Just get in the car,” he orders. “It’ll take you an hour to walk there.”  
  
Zell gives in only a little grudgingly. They drive for a while, winding down the coast for nearly a half hour until they can’t even see Garden’s lights or the city anymore. It’s more than chilly when Zell gets out of the car, and he’s not even wearing a jacket - Seifer was right, damn it - but he doesn’t care, and he’s not going to complain. He walks down among the rocks in the dark, stumbling and tripping his way toward the water.  
  
As usual, Seifer follows. He sits down in the sand at the edge of the water, just a few feet from Zell, who thinks about walking away, but decides it’s not worth the effort. Wherever he goes, Seifer’s just going to shadow him, and he doesn’t have the energy to fight. Not today.  
  
“Didn’t see you at the funeral,” Seifer finally says, his voice quiet against the roaring of the ocean.  
  
“You were there?”  
  
“Everyone was there. All the SeeDs. Except for you and Duran,” Seifer remarks. “I know he’s on leave. You’ve got no excuse.”  
  
Zell pulls his knees up to his chest, shivering a little in the cold sand. He hasn’t seen Nida since they returned; the other man was still in isolation last week. “What’s Quistis gonna do, dock me ranks? I couldn’t care less at this point.”  
  
“She was pretty broken up.”  
  
“Her and Neena were close,” Zell explains. Why he’s talking with Seifer about this, he doesn’t know. He doesn’t want to talk about it at all. Or he didn’t, at least. That’s what he told Dr. Kadowaki, and Quistis, and Cid. And himself.  
  
“What about the others?”  
  
“I dunno. I didn’t know them all that well,” Zell says. “I worked with McNab one other time. He was… kind of a goof. Always making jokes.”  
  
 _Zell tried not to laugh. It was no easy task - McNab was going all out with his clown bit today. He had Neena rolling on the ground and the two cadets eating out of the palm of his hand - keeping their spirits high, their nerves forgotten. The other two SeeDs - Candria and Lants - had moved on ahead, apparently not amused by McNab’s tomfoolery. Zell didn’t know them well - they both had just transferred from Galbadia a few weeks before._  
  
“The hell were you lot doing out there in the middle of nowhere, anyway?” Seifer asks casually.  
  
 _”God, it’s a fucking desert,” Nida groused as they approached the site of the ruins. Not that there were many of them. A few scattered structures here and there, but not much in sight.  
  
“Intel says there might be some structure underground. There used to be a city here. Keep your eyes peeled for entrances,” Neena told him.  
  
“Okay, you guys head half a mile east and then trail north,” Zell said to McNab, who signaled back to his team. “Check in every five minutes whether or not you find anything. I really don’t want to lose anybody in this wasteland.”_  
  
“Mapping,” Zell answers with a sigh. “Officially. Unofficially, someone thought there might be a GF lurking out there, and they wanted us to check it out.”  
  
“Bullshit. I could have told you there wasn’t,” Seifer sneers. Zell looks up at him, surprised. “I’ve done nothing but research for the last two and a half years. I’m not allowed to do real work. But there’s almost nothing I don’t know about GFs.”  
  
Zell is a little impressed despite himself. So Seifer’s good for something after all.  
  
“Alright, then, what did you find out there?” Seifer goes on after the silence stretches for a couple of minutes. “I know six SeeDs and two cadets didn’t get their asses kicked by some rogue GF.”  
  
“There was nothing out there,” Zell says.  
  
 _”This is a waste of time,” Nida said._  
  
Zell was inclined to agree, but he didn’t say that. It had barely been a half hour, but the sun was baking hot, and they had yet to see anything of significance - just piles of rocks, here and there something that might have once been a piece of civilization. “Stop complaining,” Zell said.  
  
“Sir,” Briggs called from behind him. Zell jogged back to join him.  
  
“Don’t lag.”  
  
“Sorry, I’m having some trouble with my communicator.”  
  
“Don’t be a downer, Nida,” Neena said brightly, hiking on ahead with the pilot just behind her. “Just think, you could be back at Garden doing paperwork.”  
  
She turned back to smile cheerily at Nida, who wasn’t assuaged at all by her optimism. She was still smiling when she trod on the land mine that blew her into a thousand little fleshy bits.  
  
“Do you think it was a trap?” Seifer remarks.  
  
“What?”  
  
“Someone could have planted those mines. Galbadia, or Esthar. Then let some false information slip to lure SeeDs out there.”  
  
“God, you’re paranoid,” Zell mutters, which makes Seifer laugh. It sounds strange, in the dead quiet night, to hear.  
  
“Is the headmaster going to look into this? There should be an inquiry.”  
  
“I don’t know. Who cares?” Zell says sharply. “What does it matter? Doesn’t change things, does it?”  
  
“Changes how you look at things,” Seifer says back.  
  
But Zell doesn’t want to look at things at all. He wants to close his eyes and pretend things aren’t there. Wants to shove things down into the black space in the back of his mind where they can maybe disappear.  
  
The smell of charred flesh. The sharp stab of smoke and sand in every breath. Slipping and sliding blindly, the dirt wet underneath his hands. Things Zell could have lived the rest of his life without experiencing.  
  
“How do you deal with shit?” Zell asks. “I mean… you’re freakishly well-adjusted. It really pisses me off.”  
  
Seifer laughs again, a loud, reckless sound. “Nah… I’m just a good pretender,” he says in a tone steeped in bitterness. He stares at Zell for a minute, and Zell stares back, trying to read something in Seifer’s face. There’s nothing there, nothing but the faint gleam of Seifer’s eyes in the light of the half-moon. There’s never anything there - Seifer is even better than Zell is at keeping things back in the dark space.  
  
“Watching you helps,” he says conversationally a few moments later.  
  
“What?”  
  
“Sure. Sometimes the only thing that keeps me from totally losing it is knowing that you’re even worse than I am at keeping your shit together. Makes me feel better about myself.”  
  
“You are such an incredible asshole, you know that?” Zell spits, kicking sand at Seifer as he abruptly gets to his feet. The other man only laughs again as Zell stalks back up the beach toward the car.  
  
“Where are you going?” Seifer calls. “I’ve got the keys. Have a nice walk back to Garden; I’ll see you in the morning.”  
  
“I don’t know what stupid part of me thought you might actually act like a decent human being for once, and, like… actually say something helpful.”  
  
“I don’t know, either.” Seifer gets up and ambles back toward the car. “Let’s go back. I’m freezing my ass off out here.”  
  
Zell refuses to speak as they drive back to town, the heat cranked up. He shouldn’t have expected more out of Seifer than mocking. “Man, what are you in such a snit about?” Seifer asks as they’re walking back through the dark parking garage toward Garden’s main building.  
  
“I don’t know,” Zell says bad-temperedly, which is the truth.    
  
“You don’t know? I’ll tell you,” Seifer replies, sounding irritated - which is something, at least. “You’re disappointed? You thought I was gonna comfort you and tell you everything’s going to be okay? You’re barking up the wrong tree, Dincht. If you want someone to coddle you, try Rinoa. Or Quistis. Someone who’s got their shit together.”  
  
They slip into the silent corridors of the sleeping academy and head for the dorms, Seifer walking briskly in front. In a quiet but firm voice, he goes on, “I know what it’s like to be always fighting with yourself. And to lose. I’ll tell it like it is. If that’s what you want, that’s me.” He pauses, still walking, to look back at Zell, who is taking in this speech without comment. “If you want to pretend you’re fine, stick your head in the sand, well… find someone else to go crying to.”  
  
Zell thinks about this as they navigate the empty halls until they’re back at his dorm room. “Alright, I get it,” he says as they’re standing outside the door, Seifer not even pretending he’s not going to barge in the way he does every night. “But you’re the one who tagged along with me tonight, aren’t you?”  
  
Seifer smirks, shakes his head, and then goes inside, scoffing something under his breath. Zell, smiling and feeling strangely triumphant, follows.  
  


  
34.

Zell stares in disbelief at the paper in front of him.  
  
“I was as lenient as I could be,” Cid explains to him, in a voice that’s not stern but sympathetic. “You understand that  _some_  disciplinary action had to be taken. You failed to report for duty to an official Garden event. Regulation states that all able members of SeeD attend the funeral of colleagues.”  
  
“I know that, but I…” Zell starts to say, and cuts himself off. Cid’s tone isn’t accusatory or scolding in the least, but Zell still feels compelled to excuse himself. But he doesn’t have an excuse. He’s been to at least a half dozen funerals in the last two and a half years and, yes, they’re always hard, but Zell is a soldier. Or at least, he’s supposed to be.  
  
“I’m not without sympathy. I know that you lost friends.”  
  
“That’s not an excuse,” Zell cuts in, sounding harsh even to himself. Cid smiles a little.  
  
“No, it’s not. But given the circumstances, I didn’t feel that a punishment was really appropriate.”  
  
Zell looks back down at the paper Cid had given him. Half a rank docked - it can hardly be called a punishment at all. Zell’s had worse demerits for falling asleep in class as a cadet.  
  
“I had to dock Squall, as well, but he was very understanding,” the headmaster goes on. “Once he had explained the situation to me-“  
  
“The situation?” Zell interrupts the older man again. Cid gives him a long look over the top of his gold-rim glasses.  
  
“He told me that he was the one who gave you permission to forego attending the funeral. Is that not what happened?”  
  
Zell feels stunned. “No, that’s right, I just… didn’t think he’d tell you that,” he says dumbly, hoping the lie doesn’t show on his face. The unexpected knowledge that Squall had vouched for him had him caught out. How uncharacteristically soft-hearted of the other man.  
  
“He doesn’t have the authority, of course, but I can’t  _really_  punish him for just trying to be nice. I hope this won’t be an issue in the future, though.”  
  
“No, sir,” Zell mumbles, and he still feels red-faced and ashamed as he leaves Cid’s office when the headmaster dismisses him a minute later.

  
  
35.

“Everything checks out good,” Dr. Kadowaki tells him at his check-up the next week. “Looks like you’re in perfect health, Zell.”  
  
Somehow Zell isn’t relieved. Sure, his wounds have all healed; his daily routine has returned to an almost normal state. But he’s more tired than he’s ever been before.  
  
“I had a check-up with Nida this morning, too,” the doctor remarks while Zell’s putting his clothes back on. “He was in good spirits. He’s getting pretty good with that new arm of his. At least, he doesn’t keep hitting himself on accident any more,” she says with a chuckle.  
  
Zell tries for a smile. He really doesn’t want to hear about it. It only makes him remember dragging the pilot’s half-mangled body through the sand, rolling him in the dirt to put out the fire. And the way Gina vomited all over herself as she wrapped her jacket around the stump where Nida’s right arm had been.  
  
“Now, Zell-“ the doctor begins, and Zell knows what’s coming. He only expected it sooner.  
  
Dr. Kadowaki gives him a long, appraising sort of look. “The last time I offered you therapy, you refused and I didn’t press you. I won’t press you now, either. But I’m obliged to offer it, and I’d strongly suggest you have at least one session with myself or another doctor.”  
  
“Thanks, but no thanks,” Zell says, trying to sound as polite as he can without giving her the impression that he’s even remotely interested in taking her up on that offer. She nods, and to his relief, really looks as though she doesn’t intend to pressure him.  
  
“Alright. The offer is always out there, any time you need it.” She finishes whatever she’s documenting on his chart as he gets dressed, but before he can leave, she starts again, “Zell… You do need to talk about things, you know. You, more than most people I know, have a remarkable ability to cope with things, but you’ll have to get it out eventually. That’s all the nagging I’ll do, I promise.”  
  
“It’s okay,” Zell says, smiling a little and not missing the doctor’s expression of relief as he does. “I… want to talk about stuff. But not to you. Sorry.”  
  
“That’s perfectly fine. That’s good enough,” she says, giving him an affectionate smile. “It’s progress.”  
  
Zell thinks so too, recalling his conversation with Seifer, and the strange sense of reassurance he’d felt after all was said and done. Kadowaki shoos him out of her infirmary, much more cheerful than she’s been after his previous check-ups, and Zell can’t help but feel a little more light-hearted than when he went in.

 


	5. Un-detached

36.

Zell isn’t even really awake when he rolls out of bed at the sound of a knock on his door. He shuffles across the room, shivering, as the knock repeats a little more urgently. It’s chilly; he should have stayed in bed, underneath the comforters where it’s warm and cozy. He can’t imagine who would come calling at his door at half past six in the morning - except maybe Seifer, but he doesn’t knock, and anyway he was already there.  
  
“Who is it?”  
  
“Zell, it’s Xu. I know it’s super early and I’m sorry, I just really need a favor from you.”  
  
He opens the door to find her on the other side looking harried. “What’s up?” Zell asks, rubbing his eyes.  
  
“Can I borrow your library card? Only I left my syllabus in there last night and I’ve got class in fifteen minutes,” she explains, sounding flustered. “I hate to bother you over something stupid like this but I couldn’t get a hold of Rebekah-“  
  
“It’s fine,” Zell says, holding up a hand. “I’ve got it right here, just give me a sec…”  
  
He leaves Xu standing in the doorway as he goes to the desk and starts sifting through the piles of books and paperwork that he can never quite seem to get organized. He locates the key card and brings it back to Xu at the door. “Here you go,” he says, handing it to her with a little smile.  
  
She doesn’t take it. She’s staring at something inside his room, something past him. Probably at his bed, Zell thinks, where Seifer is still sleeping in plain view. Zell wonders if she got a good look at him, if she can tell who it is, or if she maybe thinks it’s some random person. He spends less than a full moment wondering before he decides he doesn’t care.  
  
“I don’t need that any time soon, so no rush getting it back to me,” Zell says coolly, which brings Xu’s attention back to him. She stares at him for a moment, looking befuddled. Zell stares back, a challenge in his refusal to comment. He’s silently daring her to say something. He finds he’s almost disappointed when she doesn’t.  
  
“Okay, well, thanks a lot,” is all she says, giving him a cheerful smile as she pockets the key card. “I’ll have it back to you later today, okay?” she calls, waving, and retreats from the door. Zell watches her trot away until she goes back around the corner. Then he shuts the door, and crawls back under the blankets next to Seifer to go back to sleep.  
  
  
37.

There are a number of people up already when Zell heads into the cafeteria at the crack of dawn. Mostly instructors, and the few unlucky students who take Xu’s ridiculously early tactics classes. Zell loads up his plate with fruit and some toast and goes to look for a table.  
  
Nearby, Quistis spots him and gives him a small wave from where she’s sitting with Nida. Zell hesitates. He hasn’t talked to Nida in a few weeks, hasn’t seen the other man since he got back from his last trip to Esthar. He goes over to their table.  
  
“Aren’t you up early?” Quistis asks, slicing a banana into her oatmeal. Zell takes a seat next to her.  
  
“I wish I wasn’t. For some reason I don’t sleep well when it starts getting cold out.”  
  
“Sounds like you need someone to keep your bed warm,” Nida suggests with a cheeky smile. Quistis gives the pilot a very quelling look.  
  
“You know Garden has policies against fraternization.”  
  
“I didn’t say it had to be someone from Garden.”  
  
Quistis puckers, but doesn’t deign to respond. Zell bites back a smile. Something about her tone makes him think that her and Nida have had this conversation before.  
  
“How’s your arm?” Zell asks the other man, giving Quistis a break and changing the subject for her.    
  
“Oh, it’s great,” Nida says, flexing the creepy white metal fingers of his prosthetic arm. “I’m pretty much a pro with it now. Check this out,” he says, and he picks up his fork and bends it in half between two fingers. Quistis makes a huffing sound at him.  
  
“I told you if you do that again, I’m going to dock you points,” she says exasperatedly.  
  
Nida only shrugs, and Zell cracks a smile. “I’m going back to Esthar next week,” Nida goes on, sounding excited. “The tech guys said that once I master the robot arm, they’ll give me one that actually looks like a real arm. And Cid said I can start flying again after  _that_.”  
  
“I’m glad it’s working out,” Zell says with sincerity. Nida nods, and continues to chatter animatedly as Zell listens, eating his toast. Quistis just rolls her eyes, but Zell’s not fooled; he can see the smile she’s trying to hide.  
  
  
38.

“Zelly!”  
  
Zell hears the cry just seconds before Selphie leaps onto his back. “Selph, what are you doing?” he asks, as she giggles maniacally. “I thought you weren’t coming til later this week.”  
  
“Yah, I took a few extra days off and caught an early train. And it’s a good thing I did! Do you realize that no one around here has even decorated for Christmas?”  
  
Zell can honestly say it’s not something he’s even thought about. Selphie, still perched on his back, waves a bundle of something green and smelly in front of his face.  
  
“I’m gonna put mistletoe up  _everywhere_. You lot need some holiday spirit! Now give me a kiss,” she commands. Zell gives her a quick peck on the cheek, and she climbs down from his back.  
  
“You’re gonna come to the Christmas party, right?”  
  
“Of course,” Zell says - in the face of her blinding holiday cheer, he can’t exactly say otherwise. Plus he hasn’t actually seen Selphie in over two years, and he knows she had a hard time arranging to get away from Trabia Garden for a whole week. She beams up at him, her smile even brighter than the glaringly green Christmas sweater she’s wearing.  
  
“Alright, I’ll see you later! I’ve got to go find out if this place has a stash of twinkle lights anywhere,” she declares, jumping up on her tiptoes to give Zell a hug, and then skipping away.  
  
Zell watches her go fondly. He’d forgotten how much Selphie’s presence could force cheeriness on a person. This might be the first Christmas in the past few years he’s not dreaded.  
  
  
39.

“Where are you going?” Seifer asks when Zell pulls his duffel bag out of the closet.  
  
“Uh… I’m going to visit my Ma for a few days. She was upset when I didn’t get any time off to see her for my birthday,” Zell explains, shaking out the debris from the bottom of the bag. There’s still stuff in there from his last trip - an empty water bottle, a few miscellaneous items in the corners of the bag.  
  
Seifer flips the page in his magazine, managing to convey irritation with the almost-silent motion. Zell could almost laugh, but that would probably make Seifer mad - the other man’s been touchy lately.    
  
“It’s only for three days. I’ll be back on Monday,” Zell says, reaching down into the corners of the bag to make sure he’s got all the rubbish out. “Don’t fret.”  
  
“Do I look like I’m fretting?” Seifer replies. “At least it’ll be nice and peaceful while you’re gone.”  
  
Zell resists the urge to point out that if Seifer is sick of his company, all he has to do is go back to his own room; the jibe’s too easy. Besides, Seifer is clearly irritated - Zell can somehow tell. He’d like to lie to himself and pretend that he doesn’t notice how clingy Seifer gets sometimes, but Zell’s not exactly detached himself these days. He doesn’t remember the last time he went three days without seeing Seifer.  
  
Zell isn’t stupid. He knows this thing, this relationship of theirs is getting weird. Or rather… it should be getting weird. Instead, it seems more normal to him with each passing day.  
  
“Do you want to come with?” Zell asks on a sudden impulse - not seriously, but just for Seifer’s reaction.    
  
“Thanks but no thanks, I’m very busy,” he says dryly, not even looking up from his magazine.    
  
Now Zell does smile, but he turns back to the closet so that Seifer can’t see.    
  
  
40.

“Are you gonna make this a yearly tradition?” Zell asks when Seifer stumbles through the door well after midnight.  
  
“I told Quistis… if she’s gonna make me go to that stupid party every year…”  
  
“Yeah, getting drunk and making an ass of yourself is the way to show her,” Zell says.  
  
Seifer rubs his eyes, runs his hands through his hair, making it stand on end. “You’re a little too smart-alecky for my tastes lately,” he mutters, trying to remove his jacket.  
  
“You don’t like my attitude, go find somewhere else to sleep it off.”  
  
“You’re positively cruel,” Seifer says.  
  
Zell grabs a pillow from the other side of the bed and throws it at the other man, who staggers. “You can sleep on the floor, too. I hope you wake up with an awful headache.”  
  
“You sound like you could use a drink, Dincht. Might loosen you the fuck up.”  
  
“I don’t drink,” Zell says shortly, reaching over to the bedside table to turn the light on - mostly for the sake of further irritating Seifer, who winces away from the light. “It makes me stupid.”  
  
“More stupid?”  
  
“Why do I even put up with you?” Zell grumbles.    
  
“Why do you put up with me? Why do  _I_  put up with  _you_?” Seifer retorts, throwing his jacket on the ground after he finally manages to divest himself of it. “The only fun thing you ever do is get angry and you don’t even do that much anymore.”  
  
“Please, as if  _you_  have any redeeming qualities at all.”  
  
“What are you talking about? I’m a catch,” Seifer says, grinning cheekily.  
  
“Well, that’s obvious by your multitude of friends and admirers,” Zell says snarkily.  
  
Seifer laughs quietly, laying down on the floor and ignoring the pillow Zell threw. “Is it even necessary for me to say ‘takes one to know one’?” he murmurs, pulling his discarded jacket over his head. “Turn out that light, would you?”  
  
Zell thinks about it. He could argue - he probably should argue; reason tells him they’ll have to have this conversation sooner or later; they can’t just go on forever without defining this… whatever it is they have. It’s not really a friendship, it’s not even pleasant most of the time. It’s more like a symbiosis than anything, which scares Zell. He’s not blind to the fact that he’s gotten used to Seifer’s presence in his life. What he’s afraid of is becoming dependent on it.  
  
Then again, who cares? If Seifer doesn’t, why should Zell?  
  
“Sometime tonight would be great,” Seifer adds grouchily from the floor.  
  
“Enjoy your hangover,” Zell says vindictively as he shuts out the light, and then goes back to sleep.

 


	6. Ceremonies

41.

Rinoa spots him from the other side of the quad and makes a beeline for him before he can do more than smile and wave in her direction. It’s rare to see her in Garden - it’s been long enough that the grudge between her and Garden Administration has been mostly forgotten, but she does seem to be too busy these days taking the political scene in Timber by storm to visit very often.  
  
It’s doing her some good, too, Zell thinks - she’s positively glowing as she approaches him, beaming. “I’ve got something for you!” she announces, pulling it out of her handbag.  
  
Zell takes the item and looks it over for a moment. It’s a thick, pearly white envelope with a silver filigree design around the edges. “What is it?” he asks.  
  
“It’s a wedding invitation,” Rinoa says.  
  
“Oh,” Zell replies. “Whose wedding?”  
  
“Zell! Mine, of course!” she says, as if he’s stupid for even asking.    
  
“Sorry, I just-“ he says, feeling nonplussed. “Congratulations. Of course. I didn’t mean it like that, it’s just, I hadn’t heard-“  
  
“Don’t worry about it. We haven’t… you know… announced or anything,” Rinoa explains, looking a little sheepish. “Everything happened really suddenly, so a lot of people were surprised, I guess. Anyway… I know it’s really short notice, but I hope you’ll come. The ceremony’s going to be really small, just some friends and family.”  
  
Zell assures her he’d love to go, and she trots away looking pleased. He waits until he gets home later that day to open the invitation, staring at the silver script for a while, not sure what to think. The date for the ceremony is the last weekend of September - barely three weeks away. Short notice, indeed.  
  
“What’s that?” Seifer asks, as Zell drops the envelope on his desk with the rest of his day’s work.  
  
“Nothing,” Zell replies, burying it under a stack of folders.  
  
  
  
42.

“Hey, you got Rinoa’s invitation, right?” Quistis asks him, catching him as he exits the library. No prelude, no smalltalk - she and Zell have been friendlier lately, certainly, but he’s still not used to her being so familiar, not after nearly two years of tense radio silence.  
  
“Yeah. You’re going, right?”  
  
“Yes,” Quistis says, falling into step beside him as he heads toward the dorms. “Would you like to be my date?”  
  
“Wh… what?” Zell replies, doing a mental double-take at her question. She gives him a strange, uncharacteristically desperate sort of look.  
  
“Look, Nida’s been pestering me to go with him, and I told him I can’t because I already have a date. I figured it would be easy to find a date but it’s surprisingly… not so,” she grouches, looking miffed.    
  
“So I’m, what, your last resort?”  
  
“It’s not like that,” Quistis says, sighing. “You can tell me to piss off if you want, but… call it a favor?”  
  
“I think you ought to go with Nida,” Zell offers his opinion, although Quistis’ expression and demeanor suggest she’s not interested in what he thinks.  
  
“Tsk,” she says. “He’ll think it’s more than it is.”  
  
Zell studies her face for a moment as they turn down the corridor toward the dormitories. “You sure it’s  _not_ ‘more than it is’?” he asks coolly. Quistis doesn’t answer, but sighs again, an undercurrent of anger in the quiet sound. “I’ll go with you, Quis, don’t worry,” he adds a moment later, before she can come back with something snappy.    
  
“You understand it’s just as friends, right?” Quistis says next, but Zell doesn’t miss the lacing of gratitude in her tone, even if she doesn’t voice it with words.  
  
He gives her another long look. So they’re friends again, are they? Zell doesn’t know how long it’s been since someone called him that - or, more worryingly, since he’s called someone else that. “I guess I won’t get my hopes up, then,” he replies teasingly. She laughs, and slaps him lightly on the arm.  
  
“I’d only break your heart, Zelly,” she chirps, winking. Then she leans in to press a kiss to his cheek, and gives him a warm smile. “Thanks,” she says, and then strolls away down the hall to the women’s dorms.  
  
“No prob,” Zell says, feeling befuddled by the whole encounter. Every once in a while when he thought he had Quistis pretty well pegged, she went and surprised him by acting like a woman again. He’d probably never understand her.  
  
  
  
43.

“If you say ‘fat’ one more time, Quis, I swear I’m going to lose it,” Zell says warningly as she emerges from the dressing room again, back in the pink dress  _again_.  
  
“I never said I was fat. I said ‘too fat for this gown’,” she mutters, twisting her body to look in the triple-paneled mirror behind her. “There’s a difference.”  
  
“No, there’s not a difference, because both statements are insane.”  
  
Quistis frowns at him in the mirror, but doesn’t respond. She at least seems to understand that she’s pushing Zell’s patience, even if she doesn’t have any intention of bringing this three-hour dress shopping session to a close any time soon. “Tell me again why I’m here, instead of, I don’t know, Rinoa or Xu or one of your  _girl_ friends,” Zell sighs, flipping idly through one of the fishing magazines stacked on the table in the dressing room.  
  
“Rinoa’s way too busy with her own stuff. I wanted you because you’ll give me an honest opinion. Xu would just tell me I look good in everything whether or not it’s true.”  
  
“You  _do_  look good in everything,” Zell says, to which she responds with a grimace, still staring at her ass in the mirror. “Although I don’t think pink’s your color. I liked the black one you tried on earlier, the one with the swishy bit on top.”  
  
“Yeah, me too,” Quistis says, looking wistfully over at the rack where the black dress is hanging with the fourteen others she’s already tried on. “But I can’t wear black to a wedding!”  
  
“It comes in white, as well,” the sales assistant offers unhelpfully. Quistis gives her a cold stare.  
  
“That’s  _worse_!”  
  
“Just wear your SeeD uniform,” Zell says. “That’s what I’m wearing.”  
  
“It’s so plain… I want to look pretty,” she remarks, climbing down from the mirror platform and heading back toward the dressing stall.  
  
Zell swallows another sigh, discarding the magazine he’s already read through twice. Quistis seems to be suffering from a raging streak of insecurity with regards to this wedding, but for what reason Zell can’t fathom. She’s more than pretty, she’s gorgeous - and she should know it, too, with the hordes of lovesick students that follow her around Garden day and night. “Can you pass the black one back in?” she calls from behind the stall door.  
  
“Of course,” he says resignedly, and gets up to grab the dress.  
  
  
  
44.

Zell, surprisingly, is having fun.  
  
It’s not like he has anything against fun. He seems to recall that he used to love fun. But his life’s not exactly full of it these days.    
  
It’s hard not to be affected by the frankly infectious joy and enthusiasm that a wedding brings on, however. The ceremony, just as Rinoa said, is small and intimate - everyone from the orphanage makes it, with a few other close friends from Garden, Rinoa’s father and his new wife, and the President of Esthar with his daughter. Everyone is so obnoxiously happy that it’s hard for Zell to resist joining in.  
  
“Don’t tell me you’re not drinking,” Quistis says to him, catching him late in the night. Zell usually avoids alcohol, but he wouldn’t even bother to try and make excuses to not drink at a wedding.  
  
“I had some champagne earlier,” he says as she takes a seat beside him on the bench facing the sea. Behind them, Zell can faintly hear Selphie singing along to the music on the dance floor.  
  
“I hope you’re not thinking of winding down already,” Quistis says teasingly. “Do you know how upset Rin will be if you try to leave early?”  
  
“I wouldn’t do that. I just needed a break,” Zell explains, which is true. “I guess I don’t have the energy I used to.”  
  
“Well, sure. I mean you’re practically ancient, aren’t you?” Quistis laughs, scuffling her feet in the sand. She kicks off her strappy high heel shoes and wriggles her toes into the sand. She’s been dancing half the night; her hair is falling out of its curled updo and trailing over her shoulders. She went with the black gown in the end, and she looks stunning - not that Zell would tell her that, because she wouldn’t believe him anyway.  
  
“Hey, thanks for being my date,” she says after a while, giving him a sincere smile. “It occurred to me that you might have wanted to bring someone else, and I kind of bullied you into it. So I’m really grateful.”  
  
“Honestly, Quis, there’s no one I’d rather be here with than friends,” Zell says, and he really means it, too - which is why, when Quistis doesn’t immediately reply, but just stares at him for a long moment, he begins to feel awkward. He knows that look on her face; there’s something she wants to say, but she’s not going to say it.  
  
“I notice Seifer didn’t show up,” is what she says instead, in an obviously forced change of subject.  
  
“I doubt he was invited,” Zell replies. Whether or not Seifer knows about the wedding Zell can’t say; he didn’t show the invitation to the other man and they don’t exactly chit chat about their daily lives. “Anyway, why would he show up? When was the last time he even left Garden?”  
  
He’s trying to sound flip, but Quistis’ expression is less amused than it is thoughtful. “Quistis,” Zell says.  
  
“What?”  
  
“If there’s something you want to  _say_ ,” he tells her. She shakes her head, not looking at him. Her reluctance to comment speaks for itself; Zell would have to be stupid to not know what this is about. “I knew Xu wasn’t going to keep a secret,” he says, mostly to himself. “I thought maybe she’d forgotten about it-“  
  
“Zell, what do you expect? She was wigged out,” Quistis says in defense of her friend. “She came bursting into my room at the crack of dawn to tell me that you… that… what she’d seen,” she concludes lamely, starting to blush.  
  
So she doesn’t really know anything. Just whatever fantasy her and Xu cooked up after Xu saw Seifer in Zell’s room.    
  
“Quistis,” he says again, calmer. She finally looks up at him. “That was months ago. Almost a whole year ago. Why are you bringing it up now?”  
  
“I… I wasn’t going to bring it up at all,” she replies. “I mean, oh my  _god_  did I want to, but Xu and I had discussed it and we decided it was none of our business and we were never going to bring it up.”  
  
“Then, I ask again, why are you bringing it up?” Zell repeats his question.  
  
“Are you really sleeping with Seifer?” she blurts suddenly, looking embarrassed. Zell hesitates in answering only long enough to make sure nobody is approaching them, but the rest of the party seems to still be on the dance floor.  
  
“Yeah,” he says, truthfully.  
  
Quistis takes a deep breath. Zell watches her short struggle with the panic she’s obviously battling; after a minute, she overcomes it. “Okay,” she says. Then, very abruptly, she gets up, grabbing her shoes from beneath the bench. “Well, like I said, it’s none of my business, so I’ll just-“  
  
“Sit down,” Zell commands, grabbing her hand before she can flee. “It’s your business now, so you’d better deal with it,” he adds, smiling to show her he’s joking. She still looks extremely uneasy.  
  
“Look, it’s not my place to tell you who to see or whatever,” Quistis begins, and Zell can sense a “but” on the horizon. She pauses a moment. “But,” she goes on, “you know there are regulations and they’re for a reason, and honestly Zell I just don’t think it’s a good idea. Seifer’s bad news, he’s still wanted in three countries for god’s sake, and he’s unstable…”  
  
She trails off, evidently becoming aware of how sanctimonious she sounds. Zell digests this little speech for a minute or two without answering. Her assumptions are pretty far out there - and Zell, surprisingly, is not as offended by them as he might have expected. Her accusations, however, strike a nerve. “No,” he says, keeping an even tone, “I think Seifer’s probably the most stable person I know.”  
  
“What do you mean?”  
  
“More than you or me, I’d guess,” he adds, to Quistis’ bafflement. “I mean, like, is he okay? Mentally? Definitely not. But he’s got his shit together, it’s under control.” She only stares at him as he pauses, thinking of how to address the other half of her remarks. “Anyway, you, uh… I think you misunderstood the… situation.”  
  
She frowns at him. “Wh… in what way?”  
  
 _In every way,_  Zell thinks, but doesn’t say. There’s no need to antagonize her. “We’re not, uh… that is, I’m not sleeping with Seifer. Not  _sleeping_  with. Just… sleeping. Together,” he says lamely.  
  
Quistis continues to stare at him. “Say again?” she says carefully.  
  
“It’s like… how do I explain?” Zell asks himself in frustration, running his hands through his hair. “He’s just… there. All the time. And… that’s all it is.”  
  
“Um,” she says. Rather than being assuaged by his explanation, she looks like she’s starting to worry for his sanity. “So it’s not… sexual?”  
  
“No,” Zell replies. “No. Not at all, no.”  
  
“Not at all? What do you mean… it’s not physical at all?”  
  
Zell has to think about it for a moment before saying, “well… no.”  
  
Quistis looks even more baffled, and strangely, Zell finds he understands the feeling. It has never occurred to him until just now that, rather than it being strange that he and Seifer might be involved, it might be  _more_ strange that they’re  _not_  involved, given the circumstances. More strange that they  _don’t_  even touch, and at least in Zell’s case, don’t ever even think about it. Now he can’t help but wonder if it’s something Seifer  _does_ think about.   
  
“Can I be honest?” Quistis asks after spending some time thinking about it. “That’s weird, Zell.”  
  
“I know it’s weird. It’s weird as hell. I’m not stupid,” he says.  
  
“I mean, if it was sexual, I could understand that. I could see that.”   
  
“You could?”  
  
“Sure,” she replies with a shrug. “You guys used to have this kind of… passion. I mean, I was always worried you were going to kill each other, but passion is passion. I could see how it might develop into… well, if it’s not sexual, then I don’t understand it at all,” she confesses, giving Zell a sort of helpless look.  
  
“You and me both, Quis,” Zell says.  
  
They sit for a long while without speaking again, watching the ocean. Zell’s mind is suddenly overfilled with new thoughts and questions, but here, now, is definitely not the time to start trying to unravel them.    
  
“So what are you going to do?” he asks Quistis eventually.  
  
“I think I’ll go back to the party,” is her answer, and she gets up from her seat, smiling down at Zell. It’s not the reply he was looking for - but it kind of is, at the same time. She grabs her shoes from the sand and heads back up the beach. “You’d better, too,” she calls to him, “before Rinoa comes hunting you down!”  
  
Since Zell can’t think of any better way to distract himself from the new ideas rattling around his head than rejoining the party, he does just that.  
  
The celebration doesn’t start winding down until near dawn, when everyone is too drunk and tired to keep the party going. People start making their way slowly and carefully back to Garden, but Zell goes back to the beach. He’s not yet ready to face the overdue introspection that returning to his dorm will bring.  
  
He’s not the only one, it seems, because someone plops down in the sand next to him. Looking up, he’s surprised to find that it’s Squall.  
  
“The man of the hour,” Zell says jokingly. He, like everyone else, is drunk, but it’s not totally horrible.  
  
“Who’d have thought that getting married could be so exhausting?” Squall says.  
  
“If it were me, I’d just elope,” Zell remarks. Squall looks over at him, something like amusement on his face.  
  
“I guess we’re alike, then,” he says. “Rin and I eloped in August. We’ve been married for almost two months.”  
  
“Wow, really? Congrats.”  
  
“I wasn’t interested in any of this wedding mess, but her father kind of insisted. Given the circumstances…” Squall says, mostly as if to himself. Zell doesn’t say anything, just listens. Squall has never been a big talker, and he and Zell have never been all that close, but they’re both pretty drunk, so maybe it doesn’t matter. “She wanted the big wedding. Shut down the city, five hundred guests. But there wasn’t time. I told her she can have a reception as big as she wants, when stuff can be planned.”  
  
Zell hesitates, chews on that bit of information. He doesn’t know whether or not Squall will get pissed off if he tries to read into it; they’re not really close friends. “So where’s your lovely bride anyhow? I haven’t seen her in a while.”  
  
“I think she went somewhere to puke,” Squall says dozily.  
  
Zell snorts, then laughs. “Maybe you should go find her,”  
  
“I’m gonna,” the other man says, getting stumblingly back to his feet. “I just wanted to say thanks to you for coming. Rinoa’s really happy you came, too.”  
  
Zell’s aware of that - the force and velocity with which she had leapt on him and plastered his face with kisses earlier in the night made it pretty clear. Squall wanders away again, leaving Zell to sit by himself on the beach, watching the horizon as the sun starts to creep up. Only when everyone else is gone and he can’t avoid it any longer does he get up and make his way back to Garden.  
  
  
45.

Seifer isn’t there when Zell gets home.  
  
He’s baffled. Seifer’s  _always_  there. Zell can’t get rid of him. Then he shouldn’t be feeling so disappointed, should he?  
  
Despite knowing that Seifer’s room is only three doors down the hall from his, Zell has never felt the least curiosity to go there. He’s never had a reason to - Seifer has never been out of his periphery long enough for Zell to need to go looking for him.  
  
He staggers down the hallway and knocks on Seifer’s door. It should be open, he thinks, but it’s not. A few moments later, the door opens, and Zell slips inside before Seifer can see who it is and refuse to let him in.  
  
“What are you doing?” Seifer mutters, sounding sleepy. Zell goes past him into the room, stumbling over his feet. He wants to ask Seifer why he wasn’t at home, but it occurs to him that “at home” is implying a lot more than Zell is comfortable with.  
  
“You got a window in here, huh?” he remarks, looking around Seifer’s place with a vague curiosity. “I don’t have a window.”  
  
“What are you, drunk?” Seifer asks. Zell shrugs instead of answering, and then he crawls into Seifer’s bed and snuggles down into the still-warm sheets. “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Seifer grouches.  
  
“Good night.”  
  
“It’s morning,” Seifer says, walking over to the bed and yanking the blanket away. “If you’re gonna sleep here, at least get undressed. You’re wearing your bloody boots in my bed, you know.”  
  
“ _Fine_ ,” Zell huffs. He sits up and starts to fumble with the buttons on his jacket, while Seifer looks on with an expression that’s gone from annoyance to amusement. This is why Zell doesn’t drink - he’s aware that he’s acting petulant, but for what reason he can’t even say himself. He’s just inexplicably irritated with Seifer at the moment.  
  
“You’re starting at the bottom,” Seifer remarks after watching Zell struggle for a moment. He reaches out and loosens the fastener on the front of Zell’s uniform. Zell contemplates slapping his hand away, but he’s tired. “I thought you didn’t drink,” Seifer says. “Makes you stupid, right?”  
  
“Was a wedding. You have to drink at a wedding,” Zell mumbles.  
  
“Well, you weren’t exaggerating about the stupid part, anyway,” is Seifer’s response. His tone is amused, but kind of warm - maybe Zell’s imagining it - affectionate. He starts working at Zell’s buttons. When Zell’s jacket and boots are gone, Seifer shoves him back down on the bed. “Budge over,” he orders.  
  
Zell shimmies to the far side of the bed so that Seifer can slide in next to him. If there’s something he should be saying, Zell doesn’t know what it is. He’s never felt so at a loss before. “Go the fuck to sleep,” Seifer tells him, pulling the covers up around him.  
  
“Okay,” Zell replies.

 


	7. Things Not Said

46.

The phone rings at seven-thirty in the morning. Rightly, Zell shouldn’t even still be in bed - he has a class to prepare for this morning and who knows how long that’ll take - but he is, so he reaches out to grab the phone while trying to expose himself as little as possible to the cold air outside the blankets.  
  
“Are you doing anything today?” It’s Quistis, and she doesn’t waste time getting to the point.  
  
Zell doesn’t answer immediately - it’s a trick question. She knows what he’ll be doing today. “Why do you ask?”  
  
She explains, and then, in a tone that couldn’t be more obviously trying to be peppy, she adds, “So, you don’t mind coming with me, right? I mean, you were going anyway, weren’t you?”  
  
“Sure thing, Quis,” Zell says, because it’s not like he can tell her no. “What time shall I meet you? Eleven-thirty?”  
  
“I’ve got class until twelve, so let’s make it twelve-thirty. Then we can grab a late lunch in town on the way back, how’s that sound?”    
  
Zell agrees, and they chitchat about restaurants for a little while before Quistis lets him go. Her acting’s gotten better - if Zell didn’t know her so well, he could almost believe she’s  _not_  on the verge of a depressive breakdown today. And Zell can’t really blame her. If staying in bed, unplugging the phone, and forgetting that there was a world outside his blankets was an option, he would gladly choose it. Instead, he hauls himself out of bed and gets ready to face the day.  
  
Quistis meets him at the front gate at exactly 12:30, looking chic in all black, her face covered by a giant sunhat and dark glasses. Zell assumes it’s because she’s been crying again - not that she’d need to hide it from him if she did - but when they get in the car and she takes them off, her face is calm and composed, with not a hint of tears. So she’s preparing for the return trip, Zell thinks.  
  
They drive up into the hills behind Garden and through the little falling-down stone gate of the cemetery that’s nestled into one of the valleys up there. Zell’s been here more than a few times; three or four generations of Balamb’s families are buried here. But the newer graves off in the back section of the cemetery, the ones with the SeeD logo carved on them, are where he and Quistis head. They both wander around for a bit, aimlessly - Zell passes a lot of familiar names. After a while, they meet in the back, in front of a gravestone so new the edges are still sharp.  
  
Quistis kneels down, staring at it for a long time. “Hi, Neena,” she says softly.  
  
Zell kneels in the grass next to her, just waiting. She’s not crying yet, but it’ll come - that’s what Zell really came for, anyway; he knew Quistis would need a shoulder. So he just listens to her for a while, talking to someone who’s not there, and waits for it.  
  
  
47.

“You want to go off active duty?” Cid repeats, as though he just wants to make sure he heard Zell correctly.  
  
Zell hopes this isn’t going to be a trial - he doesn’t feel like being interrogated, doesn’t need his motives questioned. “I just… don’t think I’m needed right now, honestly.”  
  
“That’s probably true,” the headmaster agrees. “We’re short of instructors and long on SeeDs around here right now, and Garden’s only getting more popular, I’m afraid.”  
  
The old man’s tone is a little bitter, maybe - surely when he decided to build the Gardens, he didn’t imagine that one day kids would be running toward the chance to throw their lives away for its cause. After a moment, it passes. “Are you thinking about teaching full-time? There are actually a number of classes that are opening up this winter and I’m having a bully of a time trying to find enough instructors to cover them all.”  
  
“I guess so,” Zell says, lacking a proper reply. If he doesn’t work full-time in some capacity, he can’t stay at Garden, and he can’t leave Garden… can he? Maybe? No, he can’t. There are things here for him.  
  
“I’m glad you’ve come to like teaching, Zell,” Cid tells him, looking genuinely pleased to say it.  
  
 _I like it better than I like fighting,_  Zell doesn’t say.  
  
  
48.

The door to Dr. Kadowaki’s office is shut, but Zell knocks anyway. It’s around lunchtime, so he figures she’s probably taking a nap, and he wouldn’t bother her except for that she keeps the heavy medical supplies in a locked cabinet, and he needs more than gauze and bandages for his class today. He’s surprised, however, when he opens the door and finds that she’s not alone - she’s sitting with Seifer, in fact, having what looks like a cup of tea.  
  
“Uh,” Zell says, completely caught out by the scene in front of him - as if it’s not normal to see Seifer in any place except for Zell’s own dorm room. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to… intrude.”  
  
“It’s fine, Zell. What can I help you with?”  
  
“I just wanted to borrow a few things for my class. Splints and stuff. I want to teach them how to set bones,” he explains.  
  
The doctor gives him an extremely wry look. “This teaching won’t be involving you breaking any of your  _own_ bones or anything stupid like that, I trust?” When Zell shakes his head to deny that charge (he can’t admit to her that she’s actually sort of got him pegged,) she grabs a set of keys from her desk drawer and throws them over to him. “Help yourself,” she says, “just make sure to inventory whatever you take.”  
  
Zell goes to the cabinet and starts to sift through the bins for what he needs. He’s highly aware of the fact that Seifer is watching him, not with curiosity - not with any emotion, really; Seifer’s got poker face down to an art. Zell can’t help but wonder what he’s doing here.  
  
“I’m gonna take off,” Seifer says after a quiet minute, getting up from his chair. Zell fidgets with some items inside the cabinet while the other man leaves, feeling somehow awkward. He’d obviously interrupted their conversation, and Zell finds, strangely, that he really wants to know what they were talking about.  
  
“Something else I can help you with, Zell?” the doctor asks him a moment later, as he looks back over his shoulder at her, still fussing aimlessly with finger splints. Her tone is amused, but the question is really a warning - they both know full well that whatever her and Seifer were talking about, she probably can’t tell Zell. Nor does she have any legitimate reason to - unless, of course, what they’ve talked about includes Seifer and Zell’s strange, codependent relationship.  
  
“Does Seifer come in here a lot?” Zell asks.  
  
“A few times a month, maybe less,” she answers. “Why do you ask?”  
  
Zell only shrugs, grabbing an empty bin out of the cabinet and throwing some random items into it. He feels flustered; he’s totally forgotten what he came in here for. Oh, yeah, splints. Kadowaki watches him with obvious amusement.  
  
“Since we’re on the subject, is there anything  _you’d_  like to talk about, Zell?” is the question she throws at him next.  
  
“Not particularly, no,” he lies, and he shuts the cabinet doors and locks everything back up. “Anyway, thanks for the stuff. I’ll bring back anything we don’t use after class, okay?”  
  
“Sure thing,” the doc replies, taking the key from him, and tactfully pretending not to notice that he practically runs out of the infirmary.  
  
  
49.

Zell, by nature, is not curious.  
  
Inquisitive, maybe. He likes to know things, to understand. He enjoys learning about everything, about anything. Curiosity is an entirely different beast. It picks at him from the inside, niggles its little claws into his head until he can’t think about anything else but what the heck Seifer and Dr. Kadowaki were talking about.  
  
“You seen my duffel bag?” Zell asks, trying to sort through the mess in his closet.  
  
“It’s under the bed,” Seifer answers.  
  
Zell goes to look, and sure enough, there it is. Seifer, who’s laying on the bed playing a video game, says, “going somewhere?”  
  
“Balamb,” Zell says. “For my birthday.”  
  
“How long?”  
  
“Few days.” Zell shakes the bag out, thinking about saying what’s on his mind. It’s been weeks, and he still can’t stop thinking about it. “Want to come with?”  
  
“No thanks,” Seifer replies without even pretending to think about it.  
  
“You sure?”  
  
The other man gives him a long look over the top of his video game. “Yeah, pretty sure,” he says. “In case you forgot, chicken brain, I’m kind of a persona non grata around Balamb. And, you know, everywhere else.”  
  
Zell knows that, but he also knows that it’s been almost four years, and people can’t hold grudges forever. Even Zell didn’t hold on to his for long - there was no point, he figured. “Just thought you might like to get out of this place for a while.”  
  
“Get out of Garden? Why would I want to do that? Isn’t it obvious I just love it here?”  
  
Seifer’s tone is dripping with sarcasm, which makes Zell think. If he really didn’t care, he’d just ignore Zell’s remark - maybe it’s Seifer who’s holding on to grudges. “Who do you think you’re fooling, Seifer?” he asks.  
  
“What?” Seifer puts his game down to stare at Zell where he’s kneeling next to the bed. Zell meets his gaze and holds it for a long minute. He wishes he wasn’t so acutely aware of how close their faces are.  
  
“Never mind,” Zell says, taking his duffel bag and going back to the closet. “Just… it’s an open invitation, okay?”  
  
“If you’re trying to be nice or something, quit it,” Seifer snaps, and he gets up and leaves the room without another word, ire written all over his expression. Zell almost wants to laugh. Funnily enough, being nice is something he’d never considered.  
  
  
50.

Zell enters the Administration Office without even knocking. It’s early in the day, so most of the desks are empty, but Xu is there, and she looks curiously up at him.  
  
“Hey, is Quistis around?” he asks.  
  
“What?” Xu looks baffled.  
  
“I need to ask her about the field exam this year,” Zell says. He’s not sure if it’s actually Quistis that’s in charge of that, but he figures his best bet for getting taken off the preceptor list for the exam this year is to go through her. He tried her dorm and the cafeteria already and if Xu can’t tell him where to find the blonde, he’ll probably have to go down the classrooms looking for her, which is more work than he wants to do on his day off. But it’s a better option than having to go out into the field with cadets.  
  
“What are you talking about?” Xu says, frowning deeply at him.  
  
“She’s not here?”  
  
“No, she’s not here,” Xu says, as though he should know that. She pushes her chair back from the desk like she’s about to stand, but she doesn’t. Just stares at him with a worrying look for a few moments. “Zell, you do know… I mean, when was the last time you and Quistis talked?” she asks next.  
  
“I dunno,” he admits, and all of a sudden, he can feel that something is wrong - Xu’s tone and expression make that clear. “A few weeks ago, I guess?”  
  
“Zell,” she repeats, and pauses. She looks uncomfortable. “Didn’t Quistis tell you? She left Garden in February. Almost six weeks ago.”  
  
“What do you mean, left?”  
  
“She moved away. She’s not here anymore.”  
  
Zell is at a loss for words. Xu’s remarks don’t register for a moment or two. It’s not possible that it’s been that long since he saw Quistis, is it? Sure, he’s been busy, and she’s  _always_  so busy that it’s not unusual for them to go a few weeks at a time without touching base. But that’s not the point - why would she leave Garden without saying anything to him? Why would she leave at all?  
  
He asks Xu that, and she bites her lip, as if she doesn’t really want to say. “She kind of… had to,” is her explanation, which is hardly enlightening. “Given the… circumstances…”  
  
Zell says nothing. Now Xu stands up. “She really didn’t say anything to you?” the brunette asks him, looking sad. “I mean, it wasn’t exactly a last-minute thing. She said she wanted to tell people personally so I’d assumed she talked to you about it.”  
  
“No,” Zell replies, feeling stupid. Xu only looks at him with pity, which doesn’t help.  
  
  
51.

“Did you know Quistis left Garden?”  
  
Zell’s been thinking about it for days, and he can’t understand. Not why she would have left - he understands that - but why she didn’t tell him. He wonders how many people she  _did_  tell.  
  
Seifer, at whom the question is aimed, replies, “Yeah. I heard she got knocked up. You didn’t know?”  
  
“How do  _you_  know?” Zell turns the question back on him.  
  
“I was in the infirmary when she got the news,” Seifer says, peeling the top layer of bread off his sandwich. He starts to pick the tomatoes off. “She had a total breakdown… it was hard to watch.”  
  
“When was that?”  
  
Seifer thinks about it. “September, I think?”  
  
If Zell was confused before, he’s completely bewildered now. Something about the situation seems surreal. Seifer is more in the loop than him - how did that happen?  
  
Seifer reassembles his sandwich, sans tomatoes, and starts to eat. Zell just stares at his own lunch, his thoughts whirling. He can’t make sense of this. Of anything.    
  
“So… you hang out in there a lot, huh?” he asks after a long stretch of silence. Seifer gives him a probing look.  
  
“Once in a while, I guess,” is his answer, not that it’s helpful. After a minute, during which Zell stabs at his casserole with petulance while Seifer watches on in amusement, he decides to take pity and elaborate, “It’s mandatory. I have to see the doc every other week for therapy. It was part of the agreement when I came back to Garden.”  
  
Huh. Zell never noticed that - and lately, he’s been noticing a lot more than he used to. “That was, like, four years ago,” he remarks.  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“Well, as long as you’re not in there bothering Dr. K,” Zell adds. “She’s got enough to do without having to babysit you.”  
  
He’s trying to bait Seifer; the ex-knight doesn’t bite. Instead, he gathers his trash on his empty plate, and then stands up. Zell grits his teeth, inexplicably irritated. All Seifer has done for the past four years is refuse to engage with him; why now is it suddenly so bothersome?  
  
“So what do you guys talk about, anyway?” He takes one last stab at goading Seifer into some kind of response before the other man leaves the lunch table. And, surprisingly, the question makes Seifer pause.  
  
“Nightmares,” he answers finally.  
  
“You don’t have nightmares.”  
  
“Sure I do,” Seifer replies without missing a beat. He doesn’t blink an eye at Zell’s presumption, as if he’s the expert on the state of Seifer’s dreams - although he kind of is. Seifer grabs his plate and pushes his chair in, and says, “just quiet ones.” Then he walks off, leaving Zell to ponder that.  
  
  
  
52.

“Is it my imagination, or do I see you in here a lot lately, Zell?” Dr. Kadowaki asks him casually one day.  
  
Zell looks up from the paperwork he’s been filing for her. “Well, I…” he starts to say.  
  
“Don’t get me wrong, it’s great to have someone helping out around here,” she adds.  
  
“Sorry,” Zell says, smiling a little. “I shouldn’t be in here bothering you.”  
  
“You’re not bothering me. Like I said, it’s nice to have some help. I just wonder if  _you_  could be doing something better with your time.”  
  
She’s fishing. Zell shuffles his papers. “Not really,” he says, continuing to file. “I seem to have a lot of free time lately.” That’s mainly because he has a great desire to avoid going back to his dorm, but he doesn’t feel it’s necessary to state it. The doc probably knows, anyway.  
  
“Okay,” she says, going back to her charting. “Well, if you ever feel like, you know, talking-“  
  
“I don’t,” Zell says.  
  
“Okay,” she repeats, and they both continue to work in silence.  
  
  
  
53.

Zell tries for weeks to work up the courage to try and call Quistis. He’s more angry with her than he’s been at all, in a long time - except maybe with himself lately. When he does finally make the call, she won’t talk to him - which he should have expected. If it were him, he’d probably be too ashamed to face anyone.  
  
“She’s… she’s not available at the moment,” Edea tells him on his third try, which is a sight better than the “she’s avoiding you” that’s implied. “Shall I leave her a message that you rang?”  
  
“Don’t bother,” Zell replies, sounding bitter even to himself. “If she’s too chicken to talk to me, fine. I’m wasting my time.”  
  
“Zell, I don’t think-“  
  
“Don’t make excuses for her. When she grows up enough to talk to me, tell her she can call me anytime, okay?”  
  
He hates the way his tone sounds so sharp, especially since Edea has never been anything but kind to him and everyone he knows. Taking Quistis in even though she already had an orphanage full of war kids to contend with is an act of kindness that Zell appreciates and is grateful for, even while he’s aggravated with Quistis herself. She’s acting like a child, Zell thinks - refusing to speak to him, running away to the Cape to hide.  
  
“Cut her some slack,” Irvine says the next time Zell calls down there - which makes Zell even more angry; Irvine flits in and out of all of their lives at his own fancy, and even  _he_  is more involved with Quistis’ life than Zell is. “It’s not just you. She won’t hardly talk to me, and she stays shut up in her room most of the time. I think she’s horribly depressed.”  
  
Despite himself, Zell’s anger softens a little and is replaced by pity. “I don’t want to hear that,” he says. “How’s she dealing with the… the baby thing?”  
  
“Come on, it’s Quistis. I think it’s the last thing she ever wanted,” Irvine says. This hardly reassures Zell, who’s feeling worse and worse about the situation as it goes on. “I think she’ll get over it,” the cowboy adds thoughtfully. “You should see the way she smiles at that little girl.”  
  
Zell pictures it in his head, and it buoys him a little. So he tries to keep it in mind over the weeks as Quistis continues to avoid him.  
  
  
  
54.

Balamb is booming these days, due largely to Garden’s presence on its outskirts. There are two other Gardens, of course, and Trabia and Galbadia both offer the SeeD field exam now, but Balamb Garden still remains the most popular - which makes Zell a little proud, and a little bitter at the same time. He’d be happier if there were less need for mercenaries four years after the end of the war.  
  
His hometown was always a big tourist destination, particularly in the summer, but the thing Zell loved about Balamb was that the residents never lost that small-town feeling - everyone was friends, everyone knew each other. And everyone knew Zell; he grew up on Balamb’s streets, raised by the city. It’s a little different these days. He tries to remember when going back to Balamb stopped feeling like going home.  
  
“What would you like for supper, Zell?” his mum asks, beating her kitchen rug over the patio railing outside.  
  
“Don’t go to any trouble. I can’t really stay that late, anyway,” he replies, which earns him a quelling stare from her. He coughs as clouds of dust emerge from the rug she’s whacking against the railing.  
  
“What are you talking about? You never come to visit anymore, and you can’t even stay?”  
  
Her guilt trip gets him every time. He only came into town today to pick up some things from his bedroom, anyway; he got roped into helping her with the spring cleaning through some kind of trickery on her part. He visits as often as he can, but the truth is, teaching full-time keeps him busier than he’d have guessed it would.  
  
“I have grading to do tonight,” he tries to tell her, knowing it’s probably a futile endeavor. “I’m already behind on my work. Anyway, I visited in March, so don’t pull that ‘you never visit me’-“  
  
“That was two months ago,” Ma says huffily, hanging the rug over the side of the patio with a few others. “You spend too much time cooped up in Garden. You should get out more, meet people-“  
  
What she means is “meet girls”; Zell listens to her go on for a while without interrupting. Always the same thing. He’d like to explain to her how utterly unequipped to meet new people he really is, but she wouldn’t understand. It’s not that he’s particularly uninterested in girls - he’s not interested in people, in general, at all.  
  
Well… with maybe one exception.  
  
“I’ll let you know when I’ve got a weekend free and we can have a proper dinner together,” he tries to placate her. “You can invite the neighbors, too. The Banners, and the Grants, from down the street. How’s that?”  
  
She looks mollified by the proposal, which was Zell’s aim, so he doesn’t say anything else to spoil it. The Grants have a niece around Zell’s age who will probably be in town for the summer, which is the only reason his mum gave in so easily, and Zell hates the fact that he had to sink to that just to end the conversation - but they finish up the chores without bringing the topic up again, so he’s not too fussed about it.  
  
  
  
55.

The graduation ball this year seems somehow more festive than usual - or maybe Zell’s just more inclined to have fun than he has been in past years, although he never really  _wants_  to be there. Watching a new batch of kids get their uniforms each year is somehow depressing to him… possibly he’s getting more cynical as he gets older.  
  
The absence of Quistis and her trademark joy-neutralizing scowl makes a difference, as well. Xu has taken over charge of Garden Administration, and she at least seems to recognize that it is a party, something her predecessor never quite grasped. She also, Zell notices, doesn’t insist that Seifer attend the ball, which Quistis always did. So when Zell gets home later in the night, it’s to find the other man in a significantly better mood than previous years.  
  
“How was the party?” Seifer asks, not sounding remotely interested.  
  
“Same every year.”  
  
Seifer is laying on his stomach on the bed, reading a novel. Zell takes a moment to look at the other man, really actually look at him - despite the fact that Seifer is around constantly, it’s not something Zell ever thinks to do. He’s not much changed in the past few years - not physically, at least - a little thinner, maybe; the red slash that runs between his eyes has faded some, but is still prominent. But he’s not at all the same man he was four years ago today - just by looking at him, that’s obvious. What the change is, Zell can’t really pinpoint.    
  
“What are you staring at?” Seifer asks next.  
  
“I just don’t… understand you,” Zell replies, which is not what he meant to say,  _ever_ , but is nevertheless true. Seifer rolls his eyes.  
  
“Oh, god, what? What have I done now?” Seifer drawls.  
  
“You haven’t  _done_  anything. You’re  _doing_  it,” is Zell’s retort - which makes even less sense to Seifer than it does to Zell himself, to judge by the other man’s expression of disdain. “How come you’re so freaking normal? Like, it hasn’t been  _that_  long. I still have nightmares about that place. Sometimes I think I’ll go mad just with the effort of not thinking about it. How do you, like, live with that in your head? The memories of stuff you’ve seen, and… and… done?”  
  
Seifer doesn’t look at him like he’s crazy, a small mercy. He replies, “I told you, I’m a good faker.”  
  
Zell wants to tell him he’s not  _that_  good. If he were better, Zell wouldn’t get a chill sometimes when Seifer looks at him - wouldn’t be afraid of the look in his eyes sometimes.  
  
“Anyway, I don’t remember most of it, so that helps,” Seifer adds.  
  
“What? What does that mean?”  
  
Seifer gives him a wry look, as if to say “what do you think?” and then goes back to reading his book. Zell’s throat feels stuck. Seifer’s remark was so flip, but it holds so many unspoken explanations. Zell’s not satisfied anymore with not caring - he wants to know what’s going on in Seifer’s head.  
  
“You don’t remember… what, anything? Like, from the war?” Zell asks.  
  
Seifer shuts his book and sits up. “You ever been drunk, like, blackout drunk? You don’t remember anything that happened, just bits and pieces.”  
  
Zell nods, even though he’s honestly never experienced that. “Well, that’s pretty much what it’s like,” Seifer goes on. “I went into the war with eighteen years of memories, and I came out of it with a handful of fragments. Does that explain it enough for you?”  
  
“No,” Zell replies, baffled, as Seifer gets up and goes into the bathroom, shutting the door behind him. It doesn’t explain anything at all; if anything Zell is more confused than he’s ever been. He wanders around the room for a minute or two, undressing haphazardly, his head in a whirl. When Seifer comes back out a minute later, Zell spins around to face him. “I don’t understand at all-“  
  
“Yeah? Newsflash, Dincht: I don’t understand, either,” Seifer cuts him off, his tone suddenly sharp. It takes Zell a few seconds to realize that Seifer is angry, because it’s been a very long time since he saw the other man get angry - certainly longer than four years. “Do you know what it’s like to be possessed by a sorceress? She crammed herself down into my mind and broke it up into a gajillion little tiny pieces. She got rid of anything she didn’t need,” Seifer continues, as Zell listens in stunned horror. “Memories. Feelings. Useless shit. She only left what she could use to steer me… to control me. I’ve spent the last four years trying to sweep up the pieces and believe me, she didn’t leave much.”  
  
He goes to the closet and yanks a tee-shirt out of a drawer, and then begins to violently undress. Zell can’t think of a thing to say - which is fine, because Seifer keeps going a few moments later, “you’re asking how I function? How do I get by from day to day?” He jerks the shirt down over his head, but his tone has already lost its sharp edge. “Fuck if I know, Zell. It’s a mystery to me how I’m even still alive. And trust me, there have been plenty of times where I wished I weren’t.”  
  
He goes back to the bed, sweeps his book onto the floor, and then climbs in. “I’m going to sleep,” he announces, huddled against the wall.  
  
Zell could almost laugh. All that venom, yelling, drama, and he ends the scene by hiding under the covers like a child. It might even have been cute, but for the fact that Zell’s skin is still crawling from that terrible revelation of Seifer’s. Zell finishes dressing for bed, goes into the bathroom, brushes his teeth, washes his face, and stares at himself in the mirror for a long time, mulling over what Seifer told him.  
  
It explains some things - not everything, but some things. No wonder Seifer’s never open about anything, if he doesn’t know enough about himself to be open with. Zell shuts off the lights, gets into bed, and lies awake for a while trying to imagine what that could be like.  
  
“She left me you,” Seifer says quietly in the dark, some time later.  
  
“What?” Zell thought he really was asleep. He waits for a bit, but Seifer doesn’t speak again for some time.  
  
“In my head…” he begins, and trails off. Minutes pass before he continues. “Like I said, the only things she left were what she could use against me.”  
  
 _And I’m one of those things?_  Zell asks himself, repeating the question in his head as the night continues to creep by. But he doesn’t have the courage to say it out loud.  
  



	8. Inches

56.  
  
Zell, as it turns out, is no good at interrogation. So it’s lucky that Seifer needs very little encouragement to tell him things. Sometimes Zell doesn’t even have to ask a question; it’s as if Seifer can sense it forming in his mind, and volunteers an explanation before he even has to voice it.  
  
It’s a little eerie - scary, even. But not as much as it would have been even a few months ago, before Zell started to have an idea of exactly what his role was in Seifer’s life.  
  
Even so, it always surprises Zell a little when Seifer asks  _him_  questions - maybe because he seems to know mostly everything about Zell without ever having to ask. When he does make inquiries, they seem sort of random, disconnected - as if he’s having a long train of thought in his head, and only speaking a small part of it out loud. “What was time compression like?” he asks one morning, early, sitting in the quiet and nearly-empty cafeteria eating breakfast. Then he takes a piece of toast and begins to spread jam on it, typically nonchalant, as though he didn’t just throw the verbal equivalent of a u-turn into their conversation about books.  
  
“If you don’t remember that, I don’t think I honestly want to tell you,” Zell says truthfully. Seifer gives him a long stare.  
  
“No, I mean… I know what it was like for me. What was it like for you?” he elaborates.  
  
Zell’s not sure how to answer that. He hasn’t thought about it in years - not actively, anyway. It’s always there, a little bit, in the back of his mind, in the dark of night.  
  
“You know,” Zell says vaguely, kind of hoping that Seifer doesn’t really want to know. “You were there.”  
  
“It’s not the same. It’s different for everyone.”  
  
“What are you, the expert on time compression?” Zell replies, violently stabbing his egg, which oozes yellow onto his plate. His skin is crawling suddenly, and he really wants this conversation to end, so that he doesn’t have to think about why it never occurred to him to wonder about that. But it makes sense. He has a faint memory of Quistis clinging to him, sobbing, describing her own personal hell to him. He was so desperate at the time to just forget about all of it that he never stopped to realize how different her experience was from his own.  
  
“Whatever… you don’t have to tell me,” Seifer says, shrugging. Zell wishes he could be so casual. Seifer doesn’t have a shred of curiosity in him. “I can pretty much guess, anyway.”  
  
“That’s not really reassuring,” Zell says coolly; Seifer knows him well enough to read in his tone that the topic is closed, and doesn’t ask again.  
  
  
  
57.  
  
“Zelly, you’re coming out with us tonight, right?” Selphie chirps, flitting into his dorm room like the concept of knocking has never even crossed her mind.  
  
“Coming out where?”  
  
“You know! We’re going to that new club in town, that really swanky one that just opened on the beach,” she explains, and Zell vaguely recalls that she mentioned it the last time she was in town, which was only a few weeks ago. Selphie spends a lot of time in Balamb these days, living vicariously through Squall and Rinoa’s comfortably settled-down lifestyle and spoiling their son absolutely rotten as best she can. Zell’s not complaining; having Selphie around keeps things cheerful, even if her energy is too much for him sometimes.  
  
“I don’t know…” he says doubtfully.  
  
“Come  _onnnn_. Xu and Nida both said they’ll go and Squall and Rinoa got a babysitter for the evening and everything. And you said you’d go. I never forget, you know.”  
  
From behind him, where Seifer is lounging on the sofa with his video game, Zell hears a quiet snort of laughter. “I don’t think I said that, but…” Zell says. “Anyway, it’s not really my style.”  
  
“You can bring Seifer with if you want,” Selphie says with a shrug. “Probably no one will care…”  
  
“Nobody’s  _bringing_  me anywhere, thank you very much.”  
  
The fact that she just made that assumption says a lot about how people must perceive his and Seifer’s relationship, Zell thinks. Which is a little bit of a surprise, because most people around Garden don’t ever seem to take any notice of Seifer or his almost constant presence at Zell’s side at all. Seifer repels attention like water to a duck. Zell is never sure from one day to the next whether or not that’s intentional - it’s a talent Zell wouldn’t mind learning himself.  
  
“I’ll think about it,” Zell says to Selphie, which is definitely a “no” but as polite of one as he can manage. She pouts, and gives him a little punch on the shoulder.  
  
“You are such a bore these days,” she declares, before flouncing off. She’s absolutely right, not that Zell really cares.  
  
  
  
58.  
  
Selphie really can hold a grudge. She snubs him for weeks after he blows off her big night out. Zell doesn’t worry himself over it too much; she’ll get over it, and move her attention to the next person who inevitably offends her in some way.  
  
Seifer, for some reason, thinks it’s hilarious. “You’ve got no luck with women, do you?” he says, chuckling, one day as Selphie marches right past them, deliberately not looking in Zell’s direction.  
  
“Yeah, and who are you to talk?”  
  
“I mean, Quistis moved to the other side of the world to get away from you. Selphie’s clearly determined to never speak to you again. Make sure you insult Rinoa the next time you see her; you want to go for the trifecta.”  
  
Zell doesn’t answer; the jab about Quistis kind of smarts. They’ve had a few tense phone calls since she left, but he hasn’t actually seen her in eight, almost nine months. Zell can’t help but think that if her refusal to come back to Balamb really didn’t have anything to do with him, like Quistis claims, then she wouldn’t sound like she wants to cry every time they talk.  
  
“She’s right about you, you know,” Seifer says another time.  
  
“What? Who?”  
  
“Selphie. She said you’re a bore.”  
  
“So? Maybe I want to be a bore,” Zell says sharply, marking the essay he’s grading with a little too much force. “Maybe I’m not interested at all in being exciting. Maybe I like a quiet life.”  
  
“Do you even remember what you used to be like?” Seifer drawls, in an unusually grating tone of voice - it’s like he’s  _trying_  to rile Zell up. “You and her would have made a perfect match. Both obnoxious to the point of infuriating.”  
  
“It's weird that you remember so much about me,” Zell mutters, trying to concentrate on his work. Trying  _not_ to think about how much of the space in Seifer’s head is filled up with him - thoughts, memories of him where other things ought to be. If Zell’s got the right idea, there’s not much else in Seifer’s head these days. And that seems wrong, so wrong, really, terribly wrong.  
  
Well, it should be. But it’s not.  
  
  
  
59.  
  
Sometimes it really hits Zell unexpectedly how  _weird_  he is.  
  
For example, he never really thinks about the fact that he’s still a virgin at 21 years old. Not that he thinks being one is something particularly weird - but the fact that it never really crosses his mind is maybe a little weird. It’s not a concern, not an issue. Just a thought that passes through his head once in a while and is easily dismissed.  
  
“What are you doing?” Seifer asks, watching Zell dismantle his wardrobe for the third time in search of that horrible blue jumper his Ma gave him for Christmas last year. Zell grabs his hair in frustration, which fuels Seifer’s amusement.  
  
“Have you seen that sweater Ma gave me last year? That really ugly one with the monogram on it,” Zell explains, kicking at some piles of clothes with his foot. Seifer shrugs. “You know. It’s, like, bright blue and it’s got these fancy letters on the pocket and it’s absolutely wretched. You know where everything is, you must have seen it.”  
  
“If you own something like that, I’ve never seen it,” Seifer tells him.    
  
“It’s got to be in here. I know it is. I shoved it in a drawer as soon as I got back last time and I never even looked at it since then. It can’t have gone anywhere.”  
  
“If it’s so ugly, why do you care?”  
  
“I promised Ma I’d wear it for her Christmas photo this year,” Zell says, sighing in resignation. Ma was usually so good at picking out gifts for him. Why she thought he’d like that gross violent blue cable-knit disaster was beyond him. “For heaven’s sake, Zell, you’re an instructor now! You can’t go around in tee-shirts and jeans; no one will respect you,” she had cooed, fussing with the collar of the nice button-down shirt he had deigned to wear for her Christmas dinner. What she failed to grasp was that most of his teaching involved wrestling with teenagers in the dirt and mud, and occasionally in the sand, when they could get out of Garden for class.  
  
“I’ll help you look,” Seifer says, and all of a sudden, he’s standing right next to Zell, opening drawers. And all of a sudden, all Zell is aware of is how close Seifer is to him. Just inches away. Zell can almost feel the heat from his body. And then the question of  _why_  am  _I still a virgin?_  floats across his mind again, unbidden.  
  
Why those two trains of thought are connected, Zell doesn’t know. It probably has something to do with those stupid ideas that Quistis put into his head when they had that conversation at the wedding. And the fact that she was right about it being weird that their relationship isn’t physical. It isn’t just not physical; it’s completely the  _opposite_  of physical. Seifer never touches him, not ever, not for a second. Zell can think of  _maybe_  a dozen times in the last few years where maybe their shoulders brushed in a crowded hallway, or their hands nudged each other at night, in bed, while one or the other of them was failing to sleep. It’s not like he wants Seifer to start touching him, or anything. But the total absence of it is steadily turning into a void that Zell can’t stop noticing.  
  
“You should come with,” Zell says as he starts picking up and re-organizing the clothes he’s scattered all over the closet floor.  
  
“What, to Balamb? No thanks.”  
  
“What’ve you got against Balamb?”  
  
“It’s what Balamb’s got against me,” Seifer says, folding a tee-shirt.  
  
Zell doesn’t push it. He always asks, every time he goes into town for more than a day, but honestly he doesn’t expect Seifer to ever accept the offer. And Zell doesn’t really know why he wants Seifer to. It would just cause confusion for everyone involved. But spending even a couple of days apart from Seifer is somehow uncomfortable, and just the awareness of that makes Zell uneasy.  
  
It’s just another passing thought, though. Zell is happy to let it pass right on by and sink back into the comfort of their, yes, weird, but ultimately easy and unspoken… whatever it is.  
  
“Didn’t Rinoa take a box of your old crap to the shelter in town a few months ago?” Seifer asks casually.  
  
“Shit, I think you’re right,” Zell sighs, and Seifer laughs.  
  
  
  
60.  
  
Zell feels like an idiot.  
  
“How come I never knew your birthday was at Christmas?” he asks Seifer, trying not to sound accusing. But he feels somehow gipped, having spent now four Christmases with Seifer without there ever being any mention of his birthday being only a few days before. Not that Seifer ever goes around divulging details about himself without Zell asking, and it never occurred to him to wonder when the other man’s birthday was.  
  
Seifer gives him a look that suggests he’s seriously trying not to roll his eyes. “If you’re trying to take inventory of all the things you don’t know, Dincht, there’s not enough time in this life.”  
  
Zell doesn’t even know why it bothers him. It’s not as if Seifer acknowledges Zell’s birthday, or anything. It just seems like the kind of thing he should have known. If Selphie hadn’t come round earlier to give Zell his own early birthday gift (a handmade certificate for an entire day of “Quality Selphie BFF Time!”, whatever that meant) and ended up staying for a grueling two-hour-long conversation covering a range of topics from babies to birthday parties, he might never have stumbled onto the information.  
  
“Look, it’s really not important,” Seifer says after a while, when Zell’s pique refuses to go away. “It’s not anything to celebrate. It’s just the day I was born. Considering how many people probably wish I never had been, maybe it’s better if you don’t make a big deal out of it.”  
  
“You shouldn’t say that,” Zell tells him, his anger deflating.  
  
“It’s true. I’m not stupid enough to think that anyone around here likes me,” is Seifer’s response. His tone is cool; he doesn’t even look up from his video game to observe this bit of wry cynicism.    
  
“I do,” Zell says defiantly, mainly to be contrary. It’s sort of true, anyway. He doesn’t really  _dis_ like Seifer.  
  
“Yeah, well,” Seifer replies, shrugging, without even a double take at Zell’s admission, “you’re one person.”  
  
“You really can be an asshole, you know?”  
  
“It’s a gift,” Seifer says as Zell storms out of the room in a huff.  
  
Seifer surprises him a few days later, however, by voluntarily bringing the topic back up. “So when are you heading into town?” he asks, joining Zell at his lunch table.  
  
“Weekend after next. I got a four-day weekend,” Zell tells him.  
  
“Can I come?”  
  
Zell almost chokes on his chicken salad. “What? You want to come to Balamb with me?”  
  
“If it’s still an open invitation,” Seifer replies.  
  
“Sure. Yeah. I’ll let Ma know you’re coming with,” Zell says, feeling baffled. Why the sudden change of mind? Whatever the reason, it’s not to be found in Seifer’s expression, which is as nonchalant as ever. But Zell could swear he’s actually pleased that he got an okay - it’s not on his face, but rather… in his air, maybe? Zell doesn’t know how to explain it, but he’s pretty sure he’s right.  
  
“Cool,” Seifer says. “Happy birthday.”  
  



	9. Realities

Hey, thanks for the kudos, ellegee and my two nonnies!  I didn't honestly expect this fic to gain any notice, so I'm flattered that anyone's reading it! :D

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61.  
  
“Quistis called for you,” Seifer announces when Zell gets home.  
  
“What? When?”  
  
Seifer consults his watch. “‘Bout twenty minutes ago,” he says, bent over a stack of books on the floor. More research. He must be fairly an expert in everything by now, with all the research Cid and Rinoa have scrounged up for him over the years. But it’s not like they can let him do anything else.  
  
It’s kind of late, so Zell decides he’ll phone back in the morning. He and Quistis have fallen into a routine; one or two phone calls a week, some stunted smalltalk, never much news on either end. It’s still a little awkward, mostly because Quistis still seems like she’s ashamed of how she acted, although Zell’s been over it for a while. But they’re slowly getting back to familiar.  
  
“How’s Fiona?” Zell asks her, after they’ve gotten through the usual pleasantries.  
  
“Sick again,” she replies, sounding exasperated. “It’s this wretched weather down here; it’s always so dank and cold. It’s even making  _me_  sick. I’ve honestly never missed Balamb so much,” she admits.  
  
 _Then come back,_  Zell thinks, but he can’t say it. “Sorry to hear that,” he says instead.  
  
“How’s Seifer?”  
  
“Fine, I guess. Same as ever.”  
  
“Really?” She sounds surprised to hear that.  
  
“Yeah, why?”  
  
“No reason. I just… guess I don’t know what that really means,” she says. She pauses. Zell doesn’t reply. She has more to say, he can feel it. “I mean, what’s business as usual for the two of you? How do you define normal?”  
  
“Just… normal,” Zell says. He wishes he could convey a shrug over the phone, because he just doesn’t have the words to explain. “Are you thinking about… what we talked about at Squall’s wedding?”  
  
“Well, a little,” she confesses.  
  
Zell has to think for a few moments before he can think of how to say what he wants to tell her. Or if he wants to tell her at all. Quistis is already the closest thing he has to a confidante. He doesn’t really tell Seifer things, but he doesn’t have to; Seifer just seems to always  _know_.  
  
“Things have changed,” he finally says, and he hears a sharp little gasp on the other end of the line. “Just… not the things you’re thinking.”  
  
“I don’t understand.”  
  
“I don’t want to talk about it right now.”   _Or ever,_  Zell thinks. “Can we do this another time?”  
  
He can feel her disappointment from halfway across the world, but she doesn’t press him. “You should come to visit,” she suggests.  
  
“I wish I had the time,” Zell sighs.  
  
“I really want you to meet Fiona. Rinoa and Luka and Selphie all came down for her first birthday in April,” Quistis says, and she’s probably honestly not trying to make him feel guilty, but he does anyway. “I really miss you too, Zell.”  
  
“Maybe this summer,” Zell says. “It’s just, it’s the end of semester now and I’ve never been busier… but I usually have some free time in summer.”  
  
“You can fly down with Nida. He visits a lot,” Quistis remarks.  
  
Zell almost laughs. Her tone is calculated to make him want to read into that, to inquire - so then she can have an excuse to inquire into his own private affairs. He doesn’t take the bait. “I’ll make sure to ask him, then,” he says coolly.  
  
There’s another pause from her end, and this time, it’s her pique that Zell can feel coming through the line. Still, she doesn’t push the subject. They both have things to talk about, but they both can wait - summer is just six weeks away, after all. They chitchat for a little while longer, and Zell leaves her with a promise to book a flight as soon as finals are over, which soothes her irritation a little. Then he ends the call, and sits there for a long time trying to figure out how in hell he’s ever going to manage to explain his life to her in a way that makes any kind of sense, when he can’t even make any sense out of it himself.  
  
  
62.  
  
There are certainly a lot more people around Garden these days than there were when Zell grew up there. Seems like SeeD is still one of the most highly-sought careers, so the halls and classrooms are always filled with cadets, teenagers, and graduate SeeDs furthering their education. Babies, however, are a pretty rare sight around Garden. In fact, Zell would wager that Luka is the first one to set foot within its corridors.  
  
“Heeeeey, it’s uncle Zelly!” Selphie squeals as Zell and Seifer enter the Quad, where she’s rolling around on the floor with the toddler, clearly being bested by him in a contest of strength. “Please tell me Rinoa sent you down here to help me babysit! This little guy’s got too much energy even for me to handle!”  
  
“I was looking for Rinoa, actually. She’s not around?” Zell asks.  
  
“Her and Squall went on a date. And dumped their demon spawn with me for the night. Yeeee!” she squeals as Luka takes a fistful of her hair and starts to chew on it. Zell watches on with no intention of jumping in to her rescue - Selphie might make a fuss, but she leaps on every chance to dote on Squall and Rinoa’s son, so Zell figures she’s only griping for the sake of griping. So, instead of offering his assistance with the little menace, Zell and Seifer go back to their usual table in the corner and set up shop - Seifer with his books, Zell with term papers to grade. The presence of a drooling toddler seems to have cleared out the Quad, so it’s actually kind of peaceful, aside from the occasional shrieking and giggling from the pair of children cavorting on the floor nearby.  
  
Eventually, Selphie runs out the little boy’s seemingly boundless energy, and the both of them fall asleep on one of the couches. Zell shakes his head, watching them. What it is about babies that makes people so happy, he doesn’t understand. “Selphie’s really good with kids,” he remarks, breaking the silence that so far has only been disturbed by the sounds of pages flipping and Zell’s pen scratching endless red circles.  
  
“She’s overcompensating,” Seifer says in reply.  
  
“What do you mean by that?”  
  
Seifer looks up from the page he’s been looking at, but not reading, for the last fifteen minutes. His expression is wry. “How do you go through life being so totally blind to everything around you?”  
  
Zell is too taken aback by this left-field comment to come up with a properly offended response. Seifer goes on, with maybe a touch of bitterness, “you live your life inside this little bubble, and you never even think about sticking your nose out of it. The only time you even think about anyone else is when they come wandering inside.”  
  
“What are you saying, I’m self-centered?” Where the hell is this coming from? Zell feels kind of angry already.  
  
“She tries too hard,” Seifer replies, talking about Selphie again. “She’s a good pretender, though. But you can’t get it back. You know that, right?”  
  
Zell has an eerie feeling that Seifer’s not really talking to him, but neither does he seem to be talking to himself. “Are you okay?” Zell asks warily, because it’s not often that Seifer gets caught up in his own thoughts to the point of distraction; he’s always aware, maybe strangely so, of what’s going on around him. That, maybe, is where Zell and Seifer differ the most, Zell realizes.  
  
“The stuff that’s lost, it doesn’t come back,” Seifer says, rubbing his eyes, like he’s tired. “I should say, what’s  _stolen_.”  
  
“Stolen?”  
  
“Taken. All sorceresses do is take. Whatever they want, whatever’s useful to them. And leave the rest,” Seifer mutters. “You know. She took something from all of us. You, me, Tilmett.” He’s staring at Selphie again, curled up on the small Quad couch with Luka in her arms. “She tries really hard to get it back. But it doesn’t come back. You were smarter; you never even bothered to try.”  
  
“Dude, pull yourself together. You’re scaring me.”  
  
“This shit is getting to me,” Seifer announces, slamming his dusty old library book shut. He gets up from the table and leaves without another word, clutching his head, like it hurts. Zell is torn over whether or not he should follow. He’d like to know what the hell Seifer thought he was talking about, but his presence isn’t likely to be helpful, so he decides against pursuing the other man. He remembers Seifer once telling him that he knew what it was like to be constantly at war with himself; sometimes Zell forgets just how much Seifer  _is_ fighting incessantly against himself, his own unreliable mind, the voids in his memory. He’s so good at appearing entirely normal that sometimes Zell fools himself into thinking Seifer  _is_  normal.  
  
When it starts getting late, he packs up his things and Seifer’s books, and goes to gently wake Selphie up so that she can carry Luka off to bed. He walks her back toward Squall’s dorm with the infant in tow, and thinks about what Seifer said. It’s true that Zell never  _has_  really thought about the others, what the war cost them - maybe he didn’t want to. On one hand, Selphie seems just as cheerful and exuberant as she was the day they met - but Seifer does see things, and as Zell watches her rocking someone else’s child in her arms, cooing softly to Luka as he begins to stir, he starts to see it, too. He’s not so thick that he thinks Seifer meant Selphie  _literally_  lost a child - but she lost something, and that should have been obvious to Zell ages ago.  
  
Seifer is laying on the bed in the dark when Zell gets back to the room. “I brought your books back,” he says, setting everything on the desk, but he doesn’t turn the light on. He’s beginning to think that all this research Seifer gets into - that which is assigned by Cid and that which he undertakes himself - isn’t doing him any good. He’s been through every book Garden’s abundant shelves offer on the subjects of GFs, sorceresses, time compression, and memory loss, and as far as Zell knows, hasn’t yet discovered a single bit of information useful to his particular situation. Zell wants to tell him to give it up, but it’s not really his place.  
  
“Did I weird you out back there?” Seifer asks, his voice muffled under the pillow he’s got clutched over his face.  
  
“You usually weird me out about six times in the course of a normal day, so don’t sweat it,” Zell answers, an unspoken acceptance of the unspoken apology Seifer made. He unpacks his things quietly, and then gets ready for bed.  
  
  
63.  
  
It’s a beautiful day; the sky is a clear jewel-blue above Zell’s head as he stares up out the open top of the Garden issue rental truck. He could just do this all day, cruise around the rolling hills outside of Balamb, feeling the warm breeze, scented with grass and ocean. But they’re expected at Ma’s by lunchtime.  
  
They get into town around eleven, and Zell lets himself into the house, with Seifer close behind. He’s amazed at how easy it is to have Seifer here - but, of course, he should have guessed that Seifer would slip unobtrusively into his life here in Balamb the same way he did in every other aspect of Zell’s life. Ma didn’t even blink an eye when Zell brought the other man here for his birthday in March - whether or not she recognized him as the same man who had once held her and all her neighbors under siege was unclear, but either way she evidently didn't care. She was happy to fuss over Seifer as much as she fussed over Zell, which makes him wonder just how lonely she’s really been here by herself in all the years since he moved away.  
  
“I grabbed your bag, too,” Seifer says, entering the kitchen just behind Zell with two duffel bags in his arms.  
  
“Ah, thanks. Ma? You here?” Zell calls out, peeking his head into the living room. She had said to come by lunchtime, so Zell figured she’d be waiting for them with heaps of food on the table, like always. But the house is quiet.  
  
“Maybe she went out.”  
  
“Nah, her shopping bag’s there,” Zell says, pointing to the tote bag on the hook by the door, next to a set of keys. “I bet she fell asleep. Do you wanna take all that stuff up to my room?”  
  
Seifer heads up the stairs to Zell’s bedroom, and Zell goes downstairs to check Ma’s room. Of course, Seifer will be sleeping on the sofa bed, like he did last time, which will save Zell the stress of trying to figure out how he’s going to explain to his  _mum_  of all people why they’re sharing a bed. Even if the reason isn’t at all what people probably think. Besides, his little twin bed is a bit too small for them to be trying to squeeze into together.  
  
He knocks on the door at the bottom of the stairs, and then opens it. “Hey, Ma, we’re here. You forget we were coming, or what?” he asks, peeking his head inside. She’s on the bed, napping on top of the covers, and doesn’t reply to Zell’s question. He knocks on the door again, a little louder.  
  
“We let ourselves in,” Zell says, although that much is obvious. “If you want to sleep, that’s fine; we’ll grab lunch in town or something. I just wanted to let you know we arrived.”  
  
She doesn’t stir. Zell pauses for a moment. She’s not usually such a heavy sleeper. “Alright, well… we’ll head into town and be back in, I dunno, an hour. Does that work for you, Ma?”  
  
He steps into the room.  
  
“Ma?”  
  
Seifer is waiting in the kitchen when Zell comes back up the stairs. “I just threw everything on your bed, hope that’s fine,” he says, turning to look at Zell. “Is she sleeping?”  
  
“No,” Zell says.  
  
  
  
64.  
  
Zell should be a pro at funerals by now. He’s been to enough of them to know the procedure. Things to say, things not to say. How to greet people and thank them for coming. How to not look like you’re falling apart as you listen to an endless stream of visitors, friends, and neighbors tell you how very sorry they are for your loss.  
  
He escapes after a while, ducking out of the stuffy funeral home and crossing the street to the park. The slides and swingsets he used to spend his days scaling like a mountaineer are still there, although they’re pretty old and creaky now, and kids don’t play on them much. He sits in the grass by some hedges and watches people filing in and out of the building across the street.  
  
After a while, Quistis emerges, and wanders over to join him. “Hi,” she says softly, and her mouth gives a sort of twitch that’s probably supposed to be an attempt at a smile. “Can I sit? Or… do you want to be alone?”  
  
“Go ahead,” Zell says, nodding. She settles down in the grass beside him. He wants to be away from people, but not necessarily alone. Quistis has been extremely helpful since she got into town four days ago, helping him arrange and plan things, and he’s more grateful for her presence than he can express with words. But then, they seem to have come to a point where some things can be expressed without words.  
  
“I swear,” he murmurs, staring up at the glazed blue of the sky, “the next time I’m forced to attend a funeral, it had better be my own.”  
  
“Oh, Zell, don’t say that,” Quistis admonishes him, shaking her head. “I know what you meant, but… don’t say that.”  
  
“I just… thought I’d be done with them by now, you know?”  
  
Quistis reaches over and places her hand gently on the back of his head, and he slowly leans down until his head is resting in her lap, while she runs her fingers idly through his hair. He lays like that for a long time, watching the clouds drift across the sky. “What are you doing tonight?” Quistis asks him after a while.  
  
“I dunno,” he says, truthfully. Now that the funeral is over and he doesn’t have a million thoughts and worries to keep him occupied at every hour of the day, the idea of facing a night alone with his own mind seems daunting. Maybe that’s the real benefit of a funeral - to delay the shock for a few days. Or maybe that makes it worse. “I still have to grade all my finals. They’re a week late already.”  
  
“I’m sure Cid understands,” Quistis tells him, but Zell would rather not hear it. He’d rather have the promise of some work to do when he gets back to Garden later, something to keep him busy. “Is there anything I can do? I’m sure you’re not ready to tackle the house yet, but have you thought about what you’re going to do with it?”  
  
“Dunno,” Zell says again. “Sell it, I guess.” It’s a lie - he knows exactly what he’s going to do, and Quistis probably won’t much like it, so he doesn’t tell her.  
  
“I’ll be in town for a while. I’ll stay as long as you need me,” Quistis says, brushing his hair back from his face softly. “I’ve really missed being here. I’m ashamed that it took  _this_  to get me to come back.”  
  
“Quis, don’t. Please, just…” He sighs. “Save the guilt for later, okay? When I have enough energy to tell you how stupid you really are.”  
  
This draws a little smile out of her. “So, where’s Seifer got to? I haven’t seen much of him since this morning.”  
  
“Still inside, I imagine,” Zell says, meaning the reception. “Dealing with people, so I don’t have to.”  
  
“You two are so funny,” Quistis remarks, and she gives a little laugh - and not the strained, forced kind she does when she’s nervous or stressed, but a real one. “I can’t tell if you like each other or hate each other.”  
  
“Neither,” Zell mutters, and hopes that’s enough of an answer for her, because he’s not up to this conversation right now. He’s finally figured out what Seifer is - his rock, and the fact that it’s so cheesy that Zell wants to slap himself for even thinking it doesn’t make it untrue. But Seifer has been unmoveably there for Zell for years now, through all kind of shit, and through this last week; when Zell was sure Seifer would back off and let him handle all the arrangements himself, instead Seifer seemed eager to do whatever he could to help, despite the fact that he barely even knew Zell’s Ma. Zell is hugely thankful and, dare he say,  _touched_  - between Quistis and Seifer, he’s never felt so loved before.  
  
“Do you want to go back in?” he asks her after a bit.  
  
“Do you?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“I’m fine with staying here,” Quistis says, and they continue to sit there until the sky fades from blue to red to black.  
  
  
65.  
  
“Are you quite sure about this, Zell?” Cid asks him only one time.  
  
“Yeah. I’m sure.”  
  
Zell has been in the headmaster’s office a fair few times over the years, but he’s never realized how small it actually is. Or Cid. At least, it seems that way suddenly. It could be the air of defeat in the old man’s expression.  
  
“I guess there’s some part of me that was expecting this,” Cid says with a heavy sigh. He lays Zell’s resignation form down on his desk, and stares at the paper for a moment, like he wishes it would just vanish. “I’m very sorry to see you go, Zell. I don’t know what we’ll do around here without you.”  
  
“If it’s about the defense classes, I’m okay to keep doing them until you find someone who can take over. I know it’s hard to find a good combat specialist-“  
  
“You misunderstood me,” Cid interrupts, with a sad sort of smile on his face. “Not that I’m saying that your expertise isn’t valuable to this institution. What I meant was that you will be missed from here. By your students and your colleagues, and myself, as well.”  
  
Zell would feel moved by this sentiment, if he had the strength to feel much of anything. The grief has settled over his life like a dark cloud for the past week, silently and heavily muting everything else.  
  
“I feel like a complete failure sometimes, Zell,” the headmaster remarks after a moment, heaving a sigh. “I meant to protect you - all of you. I never intended to expose you to the pain and suffering you’ve been through.” He pauses thoughtfully. Zell says nothing. “Ah, well, I don’t imagine you’re interested in the failings of an old man. But I am sorry, Zell. For everything that’s happened.”  
  
“Thanks,” Zell says, because that seems like the right thing to say, even though he’s honestly past caring whether or not Cid feels remorse for the path he led his orphans down. There’s no changing it, so there’s no use in dwelling on it.  
  
“You’re welcome here any time, Zell, I hope you know,” Cid says, standing up. He extends a hand and Zell takes it, and they shake. “I hope you’ll drop by now and then. The both of you. Garden will always be open as a home to you.”  
  
“Thank you,” Zell repeats, and this time, he means it. He leaves Cid’s office feeling a little buoyed - more lighthearted for the burden of being a SeeD removed from his shoulders; a bit frightened at the freedom now looming over him. What he’s going to do with his life now, he has no idea. There’s no reason to stay at Garden; there hasn’t been for a long time - but that doesn’t mean he has any idea of what direction to turn next.  
  
He’s making his way slowly down the corridor, heading home at a leisurely pace, when he thinks back over his conversation with the headmaster, and Cid’s words actually hit him.  
  
 _The both of you._  
  
  
  
66.  
  
Zell bursts though the door into Seifer’s room, seething.  
  
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?!” he snarls. Seifer looks curiously up from the box in front of him, into which he’s stacking books.  
  
“Sorry?”  
  
“You’re leaving Garden?” Zell says, marching over to where Seifer is standing and snatching the books out of his hands, throwing them to the floor. It’s such a childish thing to do, but he can’t think of any other way to express his anger. “What are you thinking? Are you stupid? Where are you gonna go?”  
  
Seifer doesn’t answer any of these questions - possibly because he doesn’t have answers, but more likely because he can tell that giving Zell answers isn’t going to placate him any. Zell hasn’t been so angry in a long time, longer than he can remember. He grabs Seifer by the front of his shirt and yanks him down to eye-level.  
  
“What’s wrong with you, Seifer? I mean, tell me this is a joke, or something. You’re not actually thinking about  _leaving_  Garden.”  
  
“Calm down,” Seifer replies, which is not a denial of Zell’s accusation, and is therefore exactly not what Zell wants to hear.  
  
“Are you trying to make me angry?” he hisses, twisting his hands in Seifer’s shirt. Seifer doesn’t make any move to dislodge him, or to stop Zell from jerking him back and forth with angry movements - typical; Seifer won’t even touch him when it’s to defend himself.  
  
“At least you’re something,” the other man says.  
  
Zell is thrown off his stride. “What does that mean?” he asks.  
  
“You’re so fucking closed-up, it’s hard to watch. I’d rather see you be angry than be nothing,” Seifer goes on matter-of-factly - but if Zell’s not wrong, he’s a little angry, himself. “Do you think you’re saving people the trouble of worrying about you by keeping it all crammed inside like that? Who are you trying to do a favor, Zell?”  
  
“Look who’s fucking talking!” Zell spits back, but he’s suddenly reeling - Seifer actually makes  _sense_ , and it’s hard to maintain his fury when the other man comes back with a tangible argument. He releases Seifer’s shirt, and the taller man takes a step back, like he’s eager to put some space between them.  
  
“Anyway, you’re not an idiot, so quit acting like one,” Seifer says shortly, picking up his books from the floor. “Why the fuck would I stay at Garden if you’re leaving? There’s nothing for me here, or anywhere that you’re not.”  
  
Zell wants to tell him that that’s the worse attempt at a confession he’s ever heard in his life, just to be snide, but his tongue is suddenly tied. He hadn’t even really thought twice about Seifer when he decided he was going to leave Garden, and yet he had somehow just assumed that Seifer would be there next to him wherever he went, like always. Now that Seifer is telling him that’s  _exactly_  what he’s doing, Zell can’t be mad at him. In fact, he feels like he could cry - out of frustration, out of grief, maybe just out of exhaustion after everything that’s happened - but he’s not going to do it right here, right now.  
  
He stomps out of Seifer’s room without giving him a reply, and slams the door shut behind him - just for effect, really, because his anger has already deflated, leaving him with only a warm, squirming feeling of guilt and the familiar sense of confusion he gets whenever Seifer proves that he knows Zell better than Zell knows himself. He strides back down the hall toward his own room before Seifer can come out and decide he wants to pursue the argument. He’ll go back and apologize later, and knowing Seifer (knowing him,) he’ll be waiting.  
  
  
  
67.  
  
Zell doesn’t realize how much stuff his Ma had until it all belongs to him. The process of cleaning, sorting, and packing things is more than he’d ever have imagined. It seems to take a lifetime to pack away a lifetime’s worth of mementos - some things to stay; others to go to friends and neighbors or to charity.  
  
He lays on the couch and stares up at the ceiling, surrounded by boxes and the smell of dust and cardboard. The room is dark because he never got up to turn on the light when night fell. After a while, he hears Seifer come into the living room, but the other man doesn’t turn the light on.  
  
“What are you doing?”  
  
“Just taking a break,” Zell says, which isn’t a lie; it’s just been a long break. Seifer makes a scoffing noise from the direction of the doorway.  
  
“You need to go to bed,” he says.  
  
“I’m fine here,” Zell replies, “I’m not planning to sleep, anyway.”  
  
Seifer mutters something under his breath that sounds like “such a fucking idiot.”    
  
“Just go to bed, okay? I’m fine here,” Zell repeats. “I need to think about… stuff.”  
  
“I think you’ve done enough thinking about stuff. You’ve been at this shit for four days,” Seifer says, sounding fed up. He’s got every right to be; Zell hasn’t been doing much of anything productive since they took over the house. The living room is a hodgepodge mess of boxes, empty shelves, and knickknacks, and Zell hasn’t even ventured into the downstairs bedroom yet. No way in hell he’s going to  _sleep_  in there, and with Seifer in his bed upstairs, that leaves the couch - not that he’s been sleeping much, in any case.  
  
“You can’t sleep on the couch forever,” Seifer points out. And that’s true.  
  
He sounds so tired of arguing about it. So Zell gets up from the couch and goes upstairs, asking himself why he’s even bothering. If it’s just to make Seifer feel better, he shouldn’t even care - but he does.  
  
He climbs into his tiny childhood bed, feeling strange and uncomfortable - the house is too quiet without the presence of Ma bustling around downstairs. Then Seifer climbs into bed behind him, and Zell, for once, is grateful for the distraction that the other man being so near brings. All he can feel is the heat from where Seifer’s body is pressed against his back, and it’s somehow comforting, just to know that Seifer’s there. And that despite Zell’s best efforts to be a stubborn and unmanageable idiot, he insists on staying there.  
  
Zell turns over to face Seifer, feeling like he should say something - an apology, or at least a thank you, is probably in order. No words come - but, as usual, Seifer is one step ahead of him. He wraps his arms around Zell and pulls him in close, tucking Zell’s head under his chin, just as everything comes welling up from inside and Zell starts to cry.  
  
“Shut up,” Seifer mutters, which must be as close as he can get to consoling, but his touch speaks for itself; his hand rests gently on the back of Zell’s head, softly stroking his hair; and when Zell’s body starts to shake with the force of his sobbing, Seifer only holds him closer, as if he could squeeze Zell’s grief away if he just tried hard enough. Even hours later, when Zell is long past done crying, he doesn’t move away, and instead drifts slowly away to sleep, still tucked in Seifer’s arms.  
  
  
  
68.  
  
“What time do you have to be back at Garden tomorrow?” Zell asks.  
  
“Probably by ten or so. Nida says he’s flying out at eleven sharp, and if I’m not there, I’ll miss my ride,” Quistis replies, but her tone is amused. Zell figures that no one, Quistis included, would be sad if it turned out she didn’t have to go back to the orphanage. But she seems determined to go.  
  
“It’s been nice having you here,” he tells her.  
  
“It’s been nice to be here. I guess Balamb will always feel like home to me.” She turns her mug of tea around in circles on the table, staring into the hot liquid. “I’ve been thinking about moving back,” she admits a moment later. “The truth is, I hate it down there at the Cape. It’s dreary and the weather is just dismal. But I owe Matron a lot.”  
  
“I think she’d understand.”  
  
“Well, it’s something I’m thinking about,” she says again, this time with a shrug. Zell drinks his tea, and a comfortable silence stretches out between them, interspersed with noise from the children’s show that Fiona is sitting happily watching on the telly in the corner of the room. Quistis’ daughter is the most well-behaved infant Zell has ever seen, he thinks. “How are you holding up?” she asks him.  
  
Zell is sick of being asked that, but since Quistis actually genuinely wants to know, he can’t find himself irritated. “I’m doing okay,” he answers, “I guess. I mean, it’s not easy. But I’ll get through it. And Seifer’s here, so.”  
  
He could bite his tongue -  _why_  did he say that? That was  _really_  not a necessary remark. Quistis purses her lips, staring into her tea. From the corner, Fiona giggles at the image of a dancing blue dog on the TV screen. “Oh, come on,” Zell says after a few moments, cracking a smile at Quistis’ ultra-serious demeanor. “Aren’t you even going to ask me what that’s supposed to mean? Don’t you want to know  _why_  Seifer’s even here?”  
  
“I didn’t think you’d tell if I asked,” she confesses.  
  
“Honestly, if I knew, I’d tell you,” is Zell’s reply. “It’s a huge mystery to me.”  
  
“If he’s useful for something, then I’m glad,” she remarks, her facade softening. “He’s so different from how he used to be. But then, so are you, so… maybe you’re not the oddest couple I’ve ever seen.”  
  
“We’re not a couple,” Zell says, cradling his mug of tea in both hands. He can feel his face going red; he tries to blame it on the hot drink. Quistis’ expression is clearly skeptical.  
  
“If you two aren’t a couple, then I don’t think there’s a word invented for whatever you are.”  
  
“Well… that’s exactly the thing.”  
  
She just stares at him, obviously curious, but unwilling to pry for whatever reason. Zell contemplates. They’ve known each other long enough that she shouldn’t have any qualms about asking him anything, and vice versa - and yet, here they are still afraid to intrude too much, to probe too far. It’s stupid, is what it is. Quistis deserves answers, even if she’s been refusing to ask the questions for months.  
  
So Zell tells her everything. He starts at the beginning, and he has to rake through his brain for the bits and pieces sometimes, but the entirety of his relationship - such as it is - with Seifer slowly finds its way out. She listens attentively, and asks few questions - maybe because she doesn’t think Zell can answer any of them. He stops just short of telling her about what happened last week, when he spent the night tangled up (very innocently, mind) in Seifer’s arms, and he can’t quite place a finger on  _why_  he wants to keep that to himself. Quistis, after all, is the one who always thought it was weird that he and Seifer weren’t having sex. Maybe he just doesn’t want to prove her right.  
  
“Do you want some more tea? I’m going to make a fresh cup,” she says after digesting all the information he throws at her, and she stands up, taking her mug and Zell’s into the kitchen. A minute later she returns, hands him his drink back, and then takes her seat next to him on the couch again. “That’s some story,” she begins, sipping gingerly at her hot tea.  
  
She’s taking it in really well, Zell thinks. He was a little unsure that he should be divulging so much about Seifer’s mental state when the other man has done such a good job over the years of appearing normal, but since Quistis is no longer affiliated with Garden, he’s not worried about that information getting back to anyone who might take it the wrong way. Of everything he’s told her, actually, he’s the most interested in her opinion on his and Seifer’s relationship, what it seems like to her, but he’s too embarrassed to ask outright.  
  
“This… memory stuff,” she starts again, frowning, “how, exactly…? How far does it go? Like, how much does he remember, is there anything from before the war?”  
  
“Quis, I don’t know,” Zell says exasperatedly. She gives him a look like he’s stupid.  
  
“You should ask.”  
  
“It’s not my business,” he adds.  
  
“Well, I guess you’d know better than me,” she replies, with an air of holding back from lecturing. “But don’t you think he owes you at least an explanation? If nothing else?”  
  
Zell doesn’t see how that could be so, because Seifer is the one who’s done everything for him. But he only shrugs noncommittally. Quistis doesn’t look satisfied with this response, but she doesn’t push him, and they move on to other topics.  
  
Dusk is falling later as he walks her back to the hotel where she’s been staying, with Fiona waddling along beside them. “Can I give you a ride back to Garden in the morning?” he asks.  
  
“Yeah… I’d like that,” she says, casting an affectionate smile at him. She leans in to give him a hug, and doesn’t release him for a while. Zell doesn’t know how he never realized how much he missed her when she was away.  
  
“Around 9:30?”  
  
“That sounds perfect.” She bends down to scoop up Fiona, who’s pulling weeds out of the cracks in the cobblestone sidewalk. Before she goes inside, she pauses to give him a long, studying look. “Zell,” she says, a half-smile lingering on her lips. “You’ll keep me in the loop this time, won’t you? About… things.”  
  
“I’ll try,” he tells her, which is as much as he can promise.  
  
“I suppose that’s as good as I’ll get,” she replies, laughing, and then she goes inside, leaving Zell to wander back home through the dark city streets alone.  
  
  
  
69.  
  
It’s a few weeks before the house is cleaned up, everything organized, all of Ma’s stuff either gone or packed away, and ready for showing. And Zell finally makes the decision he’s been trying to avoid for weeks.  
  
“I don’t think I want to sell the house,” he tells Seifer one night.  
  
“It’s your house. Do whatever you want with it,” is Seifer’s reply, which is his way of being supportive.  
  
“But I don’t… think I want to keep living here,” Zell goes on uncertainly, not sure how to vocalize the uneasiness that haunts him in this house - it feels barren without his Ma around, and even with Seifer there, it’s somehow lonesome. “So, I dunno… what am I going to do with it?”  
  
Seifer looks up from his video game. “Are you thinking about moving away?”  
  
“Away from Balamb? No,” Zell says, shaking his head. Even besides the fact that Seifer is unwelcome in pretty much every country except here, Zell can’t wrap his head around the idea of living anywhere but Balamb; it’s too much his home. “Maybe find a place in town,” Zell continues, half-talking to himself. “I could rent the house out. It’s in a good spot, I bet tourists would love it.”  
  
He pauses, waiting for Seifer’s input, but the other man doesn’t offer an opinion. He’ll have to force Seifer’s hand. “What do you think?” he asks.  
  
“Why are you asking me?”  
  
“Well, I mean… if you don’t want to, you know, keep living together… that’s fine, I guess,” Zell says stupidly, feeling thrown off. He had just  _assumed_. Well. Didn’t Seifer say something about not going anywhere that Zell’s not? Was he wrong to assume that Seifer meant he’d still want to live with Zell after they left Garden?  
  
Seifer heaves a sigh, snapping his game shut. “You are so dense sometimes, Zell, that it baffles me,” he says, as though he can read Zell’s mind and the stupid thoughts floating around therein. “You’re living in your bubble again.”  
  
“Excuse me for not being able to read your fucking mind, okay?” Zell says sharply, irritated with the turn the conversation has taken. Seifer seems to be seizing every opportunity lately to take jabs at Zell, which is unfair, Zell thinks, because his skin is feeling pretty thin already with what’s happened over the past few weeks. “Am I supposed to know what you’re thinking all the time?”  
  
“You’d think you would by now, since the only thing I really think about is you,” Seifer replies, which effectively wipes whatever response Zell might have come up with from his mind. Seifer gets up from the couch and goes into the kitchen, leaving Zell to sit there and ponder on that. Just when he thinks Seifer’s going to be an asshole… the line between being nice and being a dick, for Seifer, is so fine that sometimes Zell can’t tell if it’s there at all. Even his insults sometimes seem to be laced with a deep affection that renders Zell incapable of getting as annoyed at the other man as he’d like.  
  
Seifer sticks his head back into the living room a minute later. “If you’re serious about finding a different place,” he says, supremely casual, “try and find one with a bigger bed, would you? I’m sick of trying to cram into that ridiculous kid’s bed you've got.”  
  
Zell just blinks, and Seifer turns and disappears upstairs.  
  
  
  
70.  
  
It’s a long time before Zell can work up the courage to ask the question he’s been wanting to ask for months. Seifer only stares at him. “She left you?” he repeats.  
  
“Yeah. That’s what you said. Do you remember that…” Zell pauses; he’s hesitant to call the exchange they’d had a “conversation”, because it mostly involved Seifer yelling stuff at him. “That time when you told me about-“  
  
“Yeah, I remember,” Seifer cuts him off shortly.  
  
“Okay… well, you never really explained what you meant, and it’s been bothering me.”  
  
“I thought it was pretty much self-explanatory,” Seifer says. His tone is cutting, which would probably irritate Zell normally, but Seifer’s expression is pained, like he’s starting to get a headache, and Zell knows it’s because he’s searching for something inside his mind that’s not there. He wishes he didn’t have to push this subject, but he’s waited way too long to ask Seifer this already.  
  
“Well then I’m an idiot, okay, because I don’t understand it,” Zell says. “You said that she… the sorceress left things. Things she could use against you. I don’t know where I fit in there.”  
  
Seifer is quiet for such a long time that Zell is sure he’s not going to answer, and he tries to resign himself to the agony of never knowing exactly what space he take up in Seifer’s head. “If you don’t want to tell me, then fine, just… say that,” he goes on after a while.  
  
“It’s not that. It’s hard to put into words,” Seifer says, rubbing his forehead. “There were so many… There were a lot of things in that place. Some good things, some bad things. It was hard for me to tell which things were real and which weren’t.” He pauses, shuts his eyes, as if just remembering it is tiring for him. “It’s still hard. I can’t always tell what’s real, or what she created.”  
  
“Created? Like, what… like memories?”  
  
“Feelings,” Seifer explains. Zell says nothing. He can’t think of a thing to say.  
  
It’s a while before Seifer speaks again. “You were there,” he says slowly. “I don’t know… there were a lot of people, but you were the most… real. When you were around, I could think more clearly. Sometimes I could get a glimpse of the real world and remember what was happening. But mostly it was just bad dreams. It’s funny,” he goes on, not sounding like he finds any of this funny at all, “I don’t know  _why_  it was you. Maybe she just picked you at random from the people in my head. Maybe she went through my memories like flipping through a catalogue, and saw something I didn’t. It could have been anybody. But it was you.”  
  
Zell wishes he could tell Seifer to stop; he doesn’t want to hear any more, he doesn’t care anymore. He’s heard enough. Making Seifer relive this is cruel. Before he can say anything, however, Seifer continues.  
  
“I don’t know how many times I had to tell myself that none of it was real before I could escape that place,” he mutters. He brings his feet up onto the couch and sits with his arms wrapped around his knees - he’s twenty-three years old, and he looks like a child after being scolded by Matron. “I had to convince myself. None of it was real. Not you. Not… anything from that place. I woke up in Deling City with just these pieces, fragments of myself, and the one thing that I was absolutely sure of was that you weren’t real… and then you showed up right in front of me, you and Trepe, to take me back to Garden, and I couldn’t comprehend it.”  
  
Zell remembers that day - he remembers Quistis crying the whole trip there, and the way Seifer’s eyes kept sliding around him, like he wasn’t even really seeing him. He had to punch a wall just to get Seifer to pay attention to him. He had wished it could have been Seifer’s face.  
  
“It’s still hard,” Seifer goes on after a while, running his hands through his hair. He looks so tired that all Zell wants to do is take Seifer’s head and place it in his lap, and let the other man just lay there until he’s slept away all the bad dreams. “Sometimes I still can’t tell… what’s real and what’s not. The… the stuff that I feel… I can’t tell,” Seifer says quietly, rubbing his eyes, sounding frustrated. “Was it there before? I don’t remember. Did she create it? How I feel about you, is that something she just conjured up to use against me? Is it real, or not?”  
  
“It doesn’t matter,” Zell says. “If you feel it, it’s real. How it came to exist, it’s… not important.”  
  
Seifer just stares at him. Evidently that idea hadn’t occurred to him. Zell’s hands are shaking, and suddenly, he begins to laugh, startling the other man. “You are terrifying,” he tells Seifer, shaking his head.  
  
Seifer, too, manages a smile. “Well, now you get it,” he says, and he seems relieved.  
  
They sit for a while without speaking, and Zell wonders idly if there’s more - not that Seifer hasn’t just given him enough food for thought to last the rest of his life. This new information satisfies Zell’s curiosity on a number of points, and at the same time raises innumerably more questions, but they don’t need to be asked right now.  
  
“It’s easier when you’re around,” Seifer says after some time, and for the first time during their conversation, he sounds reluctant - as though he’s not sure he wants to divulge this. “It’s easier to tell the difference between real things and the other things. I’m more sure of myself. But sometimes I think… what if you’re not real? That’s what’s really terrifying. The thought that someday I might blink, and you’ll have disappeared, and then I won’t have anything to hold on to.”  
  
“I won’t disappear,” Zell says, and when Seifer looks over at him, giving him a long, scrutinizing stare, he starts to feel his face heat up. But he refuses to be embarrassed. “I mean…” he begins again, more firmly, “I won’t if you won’t. Deal?”  
  
Seifer doesn’t speak for a long moment, and Zell is half-wondering if he’s going to laugh at this proposal. But he only smiles. “Okay,” he says, and Zell doesn't even remember the last time he saw Seifer actually looking happy, or if he ever did, but it suits him. “Deal.”  
  



	10. Whatever Forces

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the longer-than-usual wait time on this update! And thanks to everyone who's reviewed and left kudos! I had no idea that this story would be interesting to anyone besides me, lol. I'd love to hear what people think of how the story's going, so feel encouraged to review! *wink wink*

71.

Zell awakes to the appealing smell of something frying somewhere. Seifer is still in bed (although he doesn't cook in any case) and it’s a fairly chilly morning for mid-August, so the house must not be on fire. Zell makes his way downstairs to find Selphie making bacon and humming cheerfully to herself.

“What are you doing here?”

“I brought bacon,” she announces with a sunny smile, flipping pieces deftly with a fork.

“Yeah, but…” Zell trails off, checking the clock on the wall. He was going to say it’s a bit early for her to be barging into his place like she owns it, but it’s actually rather late in the morning; not that she has any qualms about barging into anywhere at any given time - since Zell moved back into the house in Balamb, Selphie has taken the liberty of treating his home as her own, and since her own flat is just up the street, it was quite an easy task to accomplish.

Not that Zell would complain. Selphie might have no sense of boundaries, but at least she’s not intrusive. She only tries to badger Zell into going to the beach or the boardwalk or the marina or out shopping maybe once a week. And she likes to cook, which is a godsend, because neither he nor Seifer have the skill or inclination, and they don’t have the Garden cafeteria to rely on anymore.

“Where’s Luka?” Zell asks, because Selphie rarely shows up without the toddler in tow.

“Downstairs, coloring. I told him he has to be quiet so not to wake you guys up,” she explains, putting the kettle on the back burner and taking a mug and a tin of tea from the cupboard above the stove. Zell is impressed - not that she’d have the foresight to stow Luka downstairs to keep from waking him, but that the toddler is heeding her words and actually staying pretty quiet down there. Squall and Rinoa’s son is notoriously obnoxious, although he does seem to have enough respect for Selphie to mind her most of the time. “We’re going to the beach today. I’m making sandwiches and we’re gonna have a picnic and it’s gonna be loads of fun! You should definitely come with!”

Zell tries to smile. Has it been a whole week already since she came round to pester him into going out with her? “I don’t really…” 

“Oh, come _onnn_. You like never leave the house and Luka loves to play with you. It’s not like you have plans, right?”

“You just don’t want to have to deal with him by yourself all day,” Zell says as she hands him a cup of tea, though he’s mostly teasing. He wonders if it would be tactless to remind her that he’s still kind of in mourning, but it probably wouldn’t help his cause anyway; Selphie is a firm believer in the cure-all of sunshine and rainbows. She pouts aggressively at him and Zell decides to give in. “Alright, alright. What kind of sandwiches are you making?”

“I’m doing BLTs and I got some turkey from the deli that’ll be really good. And some veggie sandwiches for me. Oh, what kind of sandwiches does Seifer like?” Selphie’s grin is bright enough to light up the room at Zell’s agreement, which is enough to turn the little bit of annoyance he feels into affection. It’s not like a day on the beach will kill him, after all.

 

72.

Zell thought filling his days without SeeD would be hard, but time moves by pretty quickly.

Summer comes and goes in a flash, and before he knows it, the days start cooling down. The kids and teenagers who have been ever-present in Balamb’s streets are gone for the school year. And Zell faces the crippling realization that he has no idea what he’s going to do with himself.

It’s not exactly that he misses SeeD or anything, but he’s just not hardwired to sit around all the time with nothing to do. He needs to be occupied. As the weeks after the funeral turn into months, he starts to feel less and less like he’s justified in having no motivation to do anything with himself and more like he’s just simply lost. He never put any thought into what he would do without SeeD; he had never had any idea of doing anything else - not necessarily because that’s what he wanted, though there was a time when that was all he wanted. But he didn’t stick with SeeD for the last five years because he liked it. The question is, what would he prefer to be doing?

 

73.

“Good morning, Dincht,” Mr. Halverson says as Zell opens the door to the junk shop, a little bell jingling to announce his entrance.

“Morning.”

“What can I do for you?”

“I’m just meeting Selphie for lunch,” Zell says, pointing up at the ceiling; Selphie lives in the flat above the shop. The owner shakes his head, smiling a little.

“Haven’t heard a peep out of her yet today.”

“I texted her,” Zell says, checking his watch, “twenty minutes ago to tell her I was coming.”

“Better go wake the girl up,” Mr. Halverson says, chuckling. Shaking his head, yet not surprised in the least, Zell goes through the back of the shop and upstairs to knock on Selphie’s door. Sure enough, from inside the apartment comes the distinctive sound of Selphie falling out of bed, and then scrabbling as she hurries to the door.

“Oh, gosh, Zell, I’m sorry! I fell back asleep!” she cries, peeking through the door. Zell can see a strip of pink flannel pajamas with moombas printed on them. “I’ll be down in five minutes, okay? Just give me five minutes!”

Zell goes back down into the shop; since he’s got at least fifteen minutes to spare, he thinks about going back home, but it’s cold and drizzly outside and the walk here was bad enough. He loiters about the small store for a while, staring aimlessly at the walls. He used to spend more time in this store than he did at home, back in his cadet days at Garden, but he doesn’t remember the last time he came in here before Selphie moved in upstairs.

Mr. Halverson waves him over to the counter, where the old man is leaning over the newest issue of Weapons Monthly. “Check this out, Dincht,” he says, flipping the magazine over to show Zell a two-page spread of flashy-looking gloves. “Brand new from Esthar, supposed to be top of the line. They’re taking pre-orders for these babies already.”

“I don’t really… I’m not SeeD anymore,” Zell says a bit awkwardly. Mr. Halverson gives him a skeptical look.

“What’s being SeeD got to do with appreciating good weapon craftsmanship?” the old man replies, shrugging. “Supposedly they’re using some high-tech lab-created materials nowadays. We’ll see how this new-fangled technological stuff holds up, I guess. I still prefer monster parts, myself,” he goes on, flipping through the article.

“Yeah, me too,” Zell agrees, studying the picture more closely. He still has his old gloves; they’ve held up well enough that he hasn’t had to upgrade over the past few years, although now that he’s out of Garden they don’t get much use. He goes out into the plains a few times a week maybe to train, but he’s definitely not what he was six years ago, or even six months ago. The Estharian gloves in the magazine are kind of garish; does everything that comes out of that country have to be neon-colored? “Bit showy for my tastes,” he remarks with some distaste. His sixteen-year-old self would have gone for them, but he prefers something a little less ostentatious these days.

“True, you’re not really a showy guy, are you?”

“Guess not,” Zell says, feeling somewhat uncomfortable; it’s not like it’s an insult, but he doesn’t like the way the old man says it, anyway. Relief comes in the form of Selphie bounding downstairs and dragging him out of the shop before he has to force his way through more smalltalk with the owner.

 

74.

Winters in Balamb are generally kind of dismal and wet, but this winter seems to be coming on particularly cold and dreary. Zell sits at the kitchen table with a mug of tea, staring out the window at the rain, which has been alternating between a chilly drizzle and heavy downpour since the night before. He was planning to walk up to the cemetery today to visit Ma’s grave, but it’s too wet; he’ll have to wait.

Seifer wanders downstairs around mid-afternoon. Zell watches him move around the kitchen, looking for food, obviously just got out of bed. His hair is mussed from sleeping and he looks so cozy in his pajamas and the fluffy, oversized hoodie he’s wearing that Zell wants to just drag Seifer back up to bed and snuggle into the other man’s warmth and sleep the day away. Not that he would do that. He just might want to.

“Zell. Hey. Chicken wuss. What are you staring at?”

“Hmm?” Zell says, jarred from his thoughts. Seifer is giving him a strange look.

“What the hell are you daydreaming about so hard?”

“I was not…” Zell pauses. “Thinking, that’s all. You haven’t called me that in a long time.”

Seifer gives him another long look as Zell goes to the sink to dump out his drink. “You haven’t been a wuss in a long time,” he replies, like that’s the obvious answer, and Zell is struck with a thought: Seifer only just remembered. Which is a good thing, probably. Memories of tormenting Zell during their school days are probably among the best ones he’s got to remember.

Seifer is still staring at him, and he doesn’t move when Zell reaches up to put his mug, cleaned and dried, back into the cupboard, which brings them within inches of each other. Seifer reaches forward and brushes his fingers across Zell’s forehead, sweeping his hair out of his eyes. “Not so much a chicken, either,” he mutters, playing with the ends of Zell’s hair.

“I guess that’s debatable,” Zell murmurs back, looking away. Seifer’s hand drops away, his thumb brushing over Zell’s chin.

“Selphie leave any food when she was over yesterday?” the other man asks, going to the fridge.

“I think there’s some muffins or something in the drawer.”

Seifer pulls out a bag of round brown things and looks at them with disdain. “Bran muffins? The fuck is wrong with her?” he grumbles.

Zell only shrugs. “They’re healthy,” he offers; Seifer scowls.

“Don’t let her shop for us anymore.”

“Well, then, do it yourself,” Zell says, but Seifer isn’t listening. He leaves the muffins on the counter and disappears back upstairs, and Zell thinks about following, but doesn’t. He is still a chicken, after all.

 

75.

“Fiona learned a new word today,” Quistis remarks. “‘Robot’. She’s been going around all day asking the other kids if they’re real people or not.”

“Who taught her that one?”

“Who do you think?” She laughs. “Then she got the other kids to start poking each other with sticks to see which ones bled, and that’s when Matron had to step in.”

Zell laughs too, and Quistis goes on with her story. Even though they chat weekly, sometimes daily, on the phone, she never runs out of things to talk about where it concerns her daughter. Rather than becoming bored, it actually makes Zell happy to listen to her go on; he remembers worrying that Quistis was going to find motherhood a burden, and he’s never been happier to be wrong about something.

“I’m sorry, Zell,” she apologizes after a while, heaving a sigh, “all I ever talk about is Fiona. You must be sick to death of hearing from me.”

Zell insists that’s not the case, but she demands they change the subject anyway. “It’s almost Christmas again,” she remarks, and Zell can sympathize with the melancholy in her tone; he doesn’t know how another year went by already. “Do you guys have any plans? I was thinking of trying to come in to Balamb around the new year.”

“Not really, no. Squall and Rinoa are going to Esthar for the holidays and I think Selphie is going back to Timber,” Zell says, contemplating it. He didn’t expect to ever be spending Christmas at home, but without Ma there. “It’s Seifer’s birthday,” he adds, thinking about it.

“Oh, that’s right. Are you doing anything? Did you get him a gift?”

“We don’t really… do that,” Zell says.

“You can hang up some mistletoe. There’s a gift everyone can enjoy,” Quistis says in a teasing tone of voice. Zell doesn’t reply, and after a very long moment, she goes on, “Zell… that was a joke. Sorry.”

“I know. I just… couldn’t laugh.”

“Oh, lord,” Quistis says, and all the joking is completely gone from her tone. “I didn’t realize things were that bad-“ 

“Nothing’s bad,” Zell cuts in before she can go making assumptions. “Don’t… misunderstand.”

  There is a pregnant pause. Zell goes on, “look, I know what people think about us.”

“What people think?”

  “That we’re a couple,” he elaborates, and glances at the front door. Seifer went out to run, but he could be back at any time, and Zell would rather not be caught in the middle of this conversation, though he can’t particularly say why. Seifer is perfectly aware that Zell shares just about everything with Quistis, including his - relatively limited, granted - understanding of Seifer’s still-jumbled mental state.

“You are a couple,” Quistis points out.

“Well, yeah, but not like that.”

“Like _what_?” she says, scoffing. “Look, Zell. Whatever _kind_ of couple you are, that’s no one’s business but yours. Don’t feel like you have to define yourself just for other people.” 

Zell almost laughs. Quistis, as usual, hit the nail right on the head. “I don’t,” he assures her, feeling relieved. “I don’t think that at all. I just, sometimes… wonder. Don’t you think we’re weird?” 

“Weird? Zell, honey. Your and Seifer’s relationship isn’t even _close_ to the weirdest thing about either of you.”

At that, Zell does laugh, and Quistis joins him. When the conversation lags, she remarks, “you know, honestly, sometimes I get jealous of you. I’ve never in my life been as close to someone as you two are to each other. It’s rare to have that kind of intimacy without having a reliance on a sexual relationship.” 

“Quis, stop. You’re making it way more than it is,” Zell mutters, feeling richly embarrassed. “We’re just… stuck together, that’s all.” 

“Oh, do you think?” she replies in a cool tone. “Really, after everything you know about Seifer? Let me tell you something, Zell. I wasn’t planning to ever tell you this, actually I thought Seifer would probably tell you himself if you asked, but obviously you’re not going to do that. The only reason he came back to Garden was because you were there. I don’t think we could have brought him back to Garden at all if you hadn’t come to Deling City with me.”

“You can’t know that,” Zell argues. Quistis scoffs.

“I do know it. I spent a lot of time with Seifer when he first came back, you know. Cid kind of made it my pet project,” she says with only a tinge of bitterness. “I was supposed to watch over him and keep him out of trouble, like that. But he kept himself out of trouble… he was freakishly normal, I thought. It scared me, because he had seemed so broken when he first came back. I realized he must be pretending, but I’ve only recently realized to what extent. And I’m amazed, honestly, Zell. It’s terrifying, how good he is at it.”

“Where is this going, Quis?”

She sighs, and sounds tired, like she hadn’t even realized she had all of this bottled up in her. “I’m sorry,” she starts.

“Don’t be sorry. If you have something to say, I want to hear it.” 

  
“Do you?” she asks, her tone still a bit frosty. “Sometimes it seems like you’re trying to close your eyes to everything that goes on around you.”

There is a pause, during which Zell says nothing. He wonders how long Quistis has been waiting to say all this to him. She always struggled to seem like she had no opinion on his and Seifer’s relationship, but her tone when she speaks next is heavy with emotion.

“Do you know what the only thing Seifer asked me was, when he came back to Garden? If you were still there. And I almost told him no,” she says, with an almost panicked-sounding half-laugh. “I couldn’t fathom why he might care about that. Can you imagine if I had told him that? Who knows how things might have turned out.”

Zell thinks on that for a moment, but doesn’t reply; a noise at the front door reminds him that Seifer could be back at any time, and sure enough, seconds later, he comes trudging into the kitchen, looking miserable and dripping wet. Zell covers the mouthpiece of the phone with his hand.

“Is it raining?”

“No, I just thought I’d go for a swim in the middle of December,” Seifer replies shortly. Zell gives him a wry look.

“Don’t be snarky. You’re dripping water all over the place.”

“I’ll clean it up later,” Seifer says, but he makes sure to fling water in Zell’s direction as he passes through the kitchen.

“I was _gonna_ say, don’t catch cold, but if you want to act like that,” Zell mutters as the other man disappears up the stairs. He stares up the empty stairwell for a few moments longer, and tries to remember what small events in his life led up to the final result of this strange life he shares with Seifer. He had never really spent any thought on it before recently, but if Quistis was right, it was more than just random circumstance that they had ended up together like this.

The idea is enough to completely shake his perception of the last five years, and yet, it doesn’t. In fact, Zell finds he doesn’t really care much at all whatever forces had conspired to put him and Seifer together like they are - whether it was fate or just happenstance. Zell is already in too deep where it concerns Seifer to start thinking about all the things that could have happened differently.

“Zell? Are you there?”

“Quis, why are you telling me any of this?” he asks, bringing the phone back to his ear. She gives a clipped, frustrated sort of sigh.

“I don’t think you fully understand how much he needs you,” she says.

“You’ve got it backwards. What I’m afraid of is that he doesn’t need me as much as I think he does.”

There is another silence, and Zell wanders from the kitchen into the living room, letting Quistis digest that. “I think he’s still not sure that any of this is real,” Zell says after thinking for a bit.

“What do you mean? Like he’s… not all there?”

“No. It’s like… I really think he’s afraid that any of this, all of it, could disappear at any time. Including me. And I don’t know how to convince him that that’s not going to happen,” Zell finishes, sighing. “Sometimes it really gets to me. Like, how can _I_ even tell that any of this is real? Maybe I’m just as crazy as he is and I’m just dreaming all this up.”

“Zell, stop. You’re being ridiculous,” Quistis says sharply, but her tone isn’t entirely steady - Zell’s words shook her a little. He remembers suddenly that Quistis, too, went to that place - her experience in the time compressed world was much different from either Zell’s or Seifer’s, but it was still an experience she could never wholly shake away from the back of her mind. “Do you guys ever talk about that kind of stuff?”

“How can I ask?” Zell replies, and he can hear the defeat in his own voice. Making Seifer recall his experiences once had been close to torturous for Zell; he doesn’t know if he can do it again. “Myself, I try to forget any of that ever happened. Don’t tell me you don’t feel the same way. How can I ask him to drag all that up again?”

“I know, but… I don’t think you can do anything for him unless you know what you’re dealing with.”

“I know what I have to do,” Zell says, and it’s true; it’s suddenly very clear to him what he can to do help Seifer. He lets out a short laugh. “You know, I used to get so pissed when Seifer would call me a chicken. He used to call me that all the time. But he wasn’t wrong.”

Quistis makes a soft, sympathetic noise. “It’s not cowardly to want to spare someone you care about from feeling pain,” she says gently. “But I don’t think you can help him by just… pretending nothing’s wrong. It’s not good for you, either.”

She sounds so sanctimonious that Zell wants to be irritated, but she’s absolutely right, so he can’t. What he’s been doing up until now - nothing - isn’t helpful to Seifer. If he’s afraid to do too much, it’s because the idea of driving Seifer away scares him to death; he wasn’t lying when he voiced his fears to Quistis.

“I’m sorry, Zell,” she says again after a few quiet moments. “I’m not trying to lecture you or whatever. But you wanted to hear what I have to say. I just… it’s hard, sometimes, for me to be a spectator.”

“No, I get it. I’m not mad.”

“Listen, I have to let you go. I can hear Fiona pestering Matron and it’s time I give her a break. Will you be around later if I give you a ring?” Quistis asks.

“I don’t know, maybe. I have a lot of stuff to… think about,” is Zell’s reply, which is as kind as he can put the fact that he doesn’t really want to pursue this conversation again any time soon.

“Well, you just go ahead and think. I’ll talk to you… whenever, I guess,” she says, and her tone is understanding; she’s not trying to pressure him into talking about it, but her intention of being there whenever he decides he is ready to talk about it is clear. Which means more to Zell than he can even say. He lets her go and sits for a while on the couch going back over their conversation.

It’s not like Quistis told him anything he didn’t already know. Zell always thought he was the type of person to face things head on, but since Seifer entered his life, he’s been resolutely ignoring the fact that they’re both going to have to face their demons someday, and Seifer’s demons definitely involve him. Whatever the version of Zell that existed in Seifer’s mind during his possession was like, it scared him - because Zell can see some of that fear sometimes, in quick glances, in the way Seifer never touches him. It’s taken years, but Zell feels like he’s starting to somewhat understand Seifer, and he almost wishes he could go back to before, to not being able to read the other man's expressions, not knowing when he was pretending and when he wasn’t. He’d rather be blissfully ignorant.

He can’t go on living in a bubble forever, though. Seifer has done a lot for him, more even than the other man probably realizes. It’s time Zell returns the favor. Still, the idea of it scares the life out of him.


	11. Missing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everybody who's been leaving lovely reviews for this fic! I adore all of you. Things happened and I got really off-track with this story for a while, but I've got the kinks worked out now so I'm optimistic about the rest of it. I'm (ambitiously) planning to update weekly from now on - what do you think of that? ＼＼\\(۶•̀ᴗ•́)۶//／／

76.

“I’m moving to Timber,” Selphie announces over a plate of cookies.

“What? When?” Zell pauses, and adds, “Why?”

“End of March,” she replies, shrugging. “I meant to tell you sooner, but I only just kind of got things figured out. Sorry.”

Zell contemplates this over his tea. He’s just gotten used to having Selphie around; her presence is good for forcing cheer on a person. At the moment, however, she looks kind of glum.

“You’re not upset, are you?” she asks him.

“No, no. Just… surprised.”

“I’m not with Garden anymore, so there’s not much for me here. When I went back to Trabia over the new year, it was… things just aren’t the way they were. I probably won’t go back again.” She smiles her sunny smile, and shrugs again. “Anyway, Squall and Rinoa are moving to Timber. So I thought, why not go?”

Zell hasn't heard any such thing, but Rinoa confirms it a few days later, when he’s over for the once- or twice-monthly dinners that the two girls have been making a concerted effort to get him to join since his mum died. “It’s been hard trying to split my time between here and there over the last couple years,” she admits, stirring a pot of red sauce while Zell helps in the kitchen; Selphie and Squall are at the table playing cards. “Squall’s taking a position at Galbadia Garden, and I won’t have to worry about not being able to dedicate enough time to the Owls.”

“Well, good luck,” Zell says, sincerely. “It’s gonna be quiet around Balamb from now on, huh?”

Rinoa gives him a long, thoughtful stare. “Hand me that?” she says, pointing to a plate of chopped vegetables behind Zell on the counter. He passes it over. “You could move, too,” Rinoa adds, stirring the vegetables into her sauce.

Zell doesn’t answer, thinking about it. But there’s nothing really to think about.

“There’s a lot to do in Timber. I mean, what are you going to do here in Balamb for the rest of your life?”

“Seifer’s not welcome in Timber,” Zell says plainly, and Rinoa’s expression turns soft.

“Rin’ll make sure he’s welcome once she’s the Mayor of Timber,” Selphie chimes in, jokingly, from the other room. Rinoa shoots her a stern look over her shoulder.

“I’m not running for mayor!”

“You don’t need to run,” Squall adds, shuffling his card deck. “I think the people of Timber are going to vote you in whether or not you want it.”

Rinoa huffs, like the idea is ridiculous, but Zell laughs. “I’ll be sure to visit, if you guys ever have free time,” he promises, and Rinoa reaches out to give him a hug, a wooden spoon still in one hand.

“You’d better! And I’ll run out anyone who thinks they can stop Seifer from coming with you,” she says fiercely, and Zell knows her personality well enough to know that she means it.

 

77.

Quistis arrives in town three days before Zell’s birthday, taking him by surprise - she claims to be in town to help Selphie get ready for her move, but Zell knows better.

“I don’t know how someone who lives such a vagrant lifestyle can have so much stuff,” she complains as they’re walking back to Zell’s place, after spending the last six hours trying and mostly failing to make some sense of Selphie’s junk-cluttered flat. Zell only laughs; Quistis loves nothing more than a good organizational challenge.

“So, it’s your birthday this weekend,” she says in a futile attempt to smoothly segue between topics. “Selphie had an idea…”

“I’m afraid to ask you to finish that sentence,” Zell replies.

“She thought we could all go out to Deling City for a night out. You, me, her, and Nida. He can fly us out there and back in the same night.”

“Fly us? What, in the Ragnarok?”

“No, he’s got his own little personal passenger jet. What, you think he drags the Ragnarok all the way down to the Cape every time I want to go back and forth?” Quistis laughs. Zell knew that Nida was doing quite well for himself in the high levels of Esthar’s air force; it seemed like they were treating him well in return. Zell wonders if the pilot is passing on any of that well-being to Quistis; she seems more cheerful lately than she has been in the past.

“You’d probably rather have a quiet night in without us bothering you,” Quistis goes on, after Zell doesn't respond one way or the other to her offer. He thinks about it for a few moments. Selphie’s idea of a “night out” in Deling City is probably more excitement than he really wants, but at the same time, she and Quistis are obviously trying to make sure his birthday doesn’t go uncelebrated - his Ma always did the same thing. So he can certainly sacrifice one quiet evening in the interests of showing his gratitude, especially since Quistis has traveled halfway across the world just to be here this weekend.

“Yeah, that sounds like fun,” he says to Quistis, and her face lights up.

“Selphie’s going to be in charge, it’ll probably be more fun than you can handle,” she replies, laughing.

 

78.

Zell is properly drunk for only the second time in his life. Selphie was determined to pour liquor down his throat, and after dinner and two clubs, Zell has lost both the energy and the capacity to try and refuse her. She drags him by both arms onto the dance floor and makes him embarrass himself, while nearby, Quistis shoots him pitying looks as she and Nida move in slow circles around the floor.

He’s having a lot of fun, even though the dance clubs Selphie keeps directing them to aren’t really his style. Late in the night, he manages to escape her clutches for a few minutes to slip out the back door for some fresh air. Quistis follows, and sits down beside him on the steps in a narrow alley between two buildings.

“How are you doing?”

“She really never runs out of energy, does she?” Zell asks, exasperated. Quistis chuckles, and puts her arm around Zell’s shoulders.

“You should have brought Seifer. I’d love to see her drag him around all night like this.”

“I wouldn’t inflict that kind of torture on him.”

“I hope it was okay that we stole you away like this,” Quistis says suddenly, as if she’s just had a thought - she’s drunk, but slightly less so than Zell, who has been taking the brunt of Selphie’s attentions throughout the night. “I mean, I know you said you guys don’t really do that kind of stuff, but maybe he had some plans for you?”

“Nah, I doubt it. I think he was glad you guys wanted to do something for me,” Zell replies truthfully. “Took the pressure off him having to try and make a big deal out of it.”

He falls silent, thinking vaguely about Seifer, while Quistis leans against his shoulder. A few minutes pass before she speaks again. “Do you miss him?” she asks.

“I’ve only been gone for twelve hours,” Zell says, but a little too defensively - because when he thinks about it, he doesn’t know the last time he went twelve hours without Seifer nearby. Quistis laughs quietly.

“You looked like you were thinking about him, that’s all.”

“It’s not like missing, exactly,” Zell says, sighing. “It’s not like I want him here or whatever. It’s just… sorta… like it feels unnatural when he’s not here.”

Quistis starts giggling, and for a long time, she doesn’t stop. “Zell,” she says eventually, getting a hold of herself. “Zell, that’s the _definition_ of missing someone.”

She leans against him again, the quiet interspersed with occasional sighs. Their interlude is cut short a few minutes later when Nida sticks his head out the door to announce that it’s officially time to bring their night of festivities to a close. “Selphie just puked all over some guy’s Galbadian Army regulation boots, so I think it’s time we better shift it out of here,” he says, extending a hand to pull Zell to his feet, and then helping a wobbly Quistis to stand.

The two-hour flight back to Balamb goes smoothly, except for a brief scare where Nida has to fly low over the water so that Selphie can vomit out of the hatch (“If you throw up in my plane, Selph, I swear I’ll kick you out the airlock myself!”) They touch down in the fields outside Balamb just after dawn and stagger back into town in the chilly morning mist. They all walk Selphie back to her flat first, and then Nida peels off toward the hotel, while Zell and Quistis head back to Zell’s place. Quistis makes a beeline for the couch and flops down on it without even taking off her shoes.

Seifer is asleep in bed when Zell makes it upstairs; he kicks off his shoes and drops his jacket to the floor before crawling in between the covers, still fully dressed but too tired to care. The movement - or perhaps his freezing cold hands - wakes Seifer, and the other man turns to face him, grumbling.

“The fuck have you been doing? You stink.”

“Stuff… dancing,” Zell says uninformatively, curling up in the blankets. The bed is nice and warm and his head is spinning a little, even though he’s mostly sobered up during the long flight back.

“Go take a shower before you get into bed,” Seifer says, nudging Zell with his elbow. Zell doesn’t move.

“I’m tired.”

“Yeah, and drunk, no doubt. What’s Tilmitt done to you? You look like shit.”

“Aww, you really care,” Zell says in his most smartassed tone; his cheek goes unacknowledged by Seifer, who gives a frustrated sigh. Zell snakes his arms around Seifer’s waist and curls into the other man’s warmth, and Seifer gives up trying to push him away.

“You really are stupid,” he says, not sounding like he means it, but Zell murmurs a drowsy agreement anyway before drifting off to sleep.

 

79.

The flat above the weapons shop is actually pretty roomy, once all of Selphie’s crap is cleared out.

“What about any of this furniture, Selph?” Zell asks as he stacks the last of the boxes by the door and looks around the mostly-empty apartment.

“Oh, most of it came with the place. The only bit that’s mine is the TV and the bedroom set, but my flat in Timber is furnished, so I can’t take it with,” Selphie explains, casting a sad, wistful glance over the matching cherry wardrobe, dresser, and queen-size bed. She sighs, and then shrugs, grinning again. “Oh, well. My new place is totally nice! You’re gonna have to come and visit and see everything.”

Zell, however, is struck by a different idea. “How much have you been renting this place for?” he asks, looking around the place with a little more interest now that it’s been decluttered.

Selphie tells him, and then adds, “but, you know, Mr. Halverson has been giving me a discount because I help out around the store sometimes. Like running errands and bringing in supplies, stuff like that.”

Zell spends a few days thinking about it before he makes a decision. He can’t keep living in his Ma’s house forever, but he’s not sure whether he can afford to rent a flat; he and Seifer had a pretty good chunk of savings between them when they left Garden, but the longer Zell goes without finding some work, the more that number dwindles.

“I’m fine with giving you the same price I gave the girl, that’s only fair,” Mr. Halverson says when Zell goes back to inquire about the flat. “To be honest, though, what I really need is some help around here. I’ve been too old to go out hunting for a long time, and importing monster parts from Timber is a waste of money these days. If you’d be willing to go out a couple times a week and bring in supplies, we can call it even on the flat.”

Zell considers the offer with some genuine interest. It’s not exactly a full time job, but it would be something to do, at least. He’d always been interested in building things, although his expertise leans more toward cars and machines; but he’s always game for learning new things. “Yeah, that works for me,” he says. “What else am I gonna do?”

“What about that friend of yours? Is he good for anything?” the old man asks, looking skeptical. Zell laughs.

“Yeah, he’ll make himself useful.”

 

80.

Zell is surprised by how few possessions Seifer actually has. Besides his clothes, he brings a couple of boxes of books, his video games, and his gunblade in its case, which Zell is pretty sure hasn’t even been opened in years. Another box stuffed in the back of a closet contains what Zell is sure are the only things left of Seifer’s from before the war - a couple way-too-small cadet uniform jackets, a Balamb Garden cadet badge, a couple of movies with BGU Library stickers on the cases. A photo album completely devoid of photos, several pages torn away, as though someone went through and violently ripped out all of the pictures. A box with a gunblade servicing kit, some half-filled jars of polish and wax. Another small box with a few pieces of jewelry inside, including the silver necklace that Seifer hasn’t worn in years. The writing on it is in some foreign language, and it occurs to Zell that the other man probably doesn’t even know what it says or why he has it.

He never thought much about it, but Seifer’s dorm room at Garden was always pretty bare whenever Zell saw it - almost sadly so. No pictures of himself or his friends, no posters on the walls. No ugly knick-knacks given to him by someone as a joke gift. Almost nothing personal at all, except what was stuffed in that box and hidden away.

“Do you want any of this stuff?” Zell asks, debating whether or not to just take the box without asking. He’s pretty sure Seifer is going to say no, but he doesn’t feel like he can just toss it without asking.

“Throw it out,” Seifer says without even looking.

Zell hesitates. But he’s not about to force the stuff on Seifer. A few moments later, however, Seifer comes back.

“Wait,” he says, reaching over Zell’s shoulder. He pulls the small jewelry box out, rattling it gently, as though to make sure there’s something inside. “I want this.”


	12. Extraordinary

81.

Spring sweeps into Balamb hot and windy, the same as every year. The junk shop has AC, but the flat doesn’t, so it’s a relief to Zell most days to get out of the stuffy apartment and wander the hills around Balamb, where there’s at least a nice breeze.

“How can you bitch so much about the heat when you grew up here?” Seifer asks one day, evidently fed up with Zell’s whining.

“The house had central air. This is my first time without it,” Zell defends himself. Seifer only rolls his eyes, and Zell goes back to packing his bag for the day. He thinks about heading up toward the mountains today; the heat might not have crept up there so early yet in the year. “Hey, you should go out with me,” he says, pushing water bottles into the pockets of his backpack. Seifer looks up from his cereal, stares for a long moment, and Zell starts to feel flustered. “I mean, you know… hunting,” he backtracks. “Go out hunting with me… sometime.”

“I know what you meant,” Seifer says in that tone like he can’t believe how stupid Zell is. “I’d hold you up. I’m way out of training.”

“How much training do you need to slice up bugs?”

Seifer maintains a pointed silence, and Zell can take a hint; he drops the subject.

 

82.

Zell has to relearn how to be sociable. He spent the last year of his life pretty reclusively, with mainly just Seifer for company, which certainly did nothing for his social skills. Now, working in the shop, dealing with people on a regular basis, he finds his patience a little strained sometimes.

It’s not always a chore, however. He runs into a lot of familiar faces, mostly from Garden, but a lot of the kids from town stop in the store often just to goggle at Mr. Halverson’s weapon collection. Colleagues from Zell’s SeeD days drop in just to say hi. Suddenly, his life includes people again, and he’s not averse to the change.

Seifer is still mostly unsociable, although he can be spotted from time to time around the store, doing pretty much whatever Zell tells him to - moving things, organizing, cleaning; most of the time, however, he stays in the back, and the Garden cadets who come wandering in hoping for a glimpse of the infamous Seifer Almasy always leave disappointed. The new editions of the history books have got their names in them, which causes Zell some unease, though when he mentioned it to Seifer, the other man had shrugged it off and remarked, “it was bound to happen eventually, right?”

He’s right, Zell supposes, but that doesn’t mean he’s entirely comfortable with the way he and his friends have been painted as some sort of heroes; they did just as many bad things as they did good things. And Zell acutely remembers the bad things. 

 

83.

Zell is pretty rarely caught by surprise these days. Life is routine, almost regimented; out of the ordinary things don’t happen very often. But Fuujin showing up outside the junk shop one day is definitely not ordinary.

He’s so caught off guard by the sight of her that for a moment or two, he can’t even think of anything to say; Fuujin, likewise, stares at him for a long while as though she is just as surprised to see him as he is to see her. Not that her expression gives away much - it never did - but the way she’s looking at him doesn’t suggest she was expecting to see him unlocking the front door of the shop early in the morning. Finally, after a stretch of silence so long it starts to get awkward, she says in a flat tone, “Zell Dincht.”

“Fuujin, hi,” he replies, trying to sound friendly despite the rather unfriendly look on her face at the moment. He suspects it might come off as rude to ask her what she’s doing here, so instead, he says, “do you need something? Can I help you with something?”

She glances up at the sign above the store, and then back to Zell, evidently contemplating. “Repairs,” she says, holding out the weapon she’s carrying at her side - still a chakram, though a newer, sleeker model than she carried when they were cadets at Garden. It occurs to Zell suddenly that the last time he was face-to-face with Fuujin was just a few blocks down the road from where they stand right now, when they were on opposite sides of a war. 

He invites her inside, flipping the sign hanging on the door to OPEN on his way in. Fuujin sets her weapon on the counter and Zell can see right off the bat that one of the spines is bent out of shape and scraped down the edge. He inspects the damage a little more closely, while Fuujin looks around the store rather aimlessly; she seems even more awkward than he remembers her being, but he doesn’t know if that’s just the way she is or because of him particularly.

“This model only came out last month, how’d you manage to ding it up already?” Zell asks, and Fuujin shoots him a sharp glare. He grins, and adds, “what’d you do, throw it at a rock?”

She stalks over to the counter, and Zell is worried for a second that she’s going to pick the weapon up and test out some of its other edges on him, but she only shrugs and rolls her eye. “I’m not used to the terrain around here, okay?” she huffs, sounding defensive. “I’m used to more open spaces. Can you fix it or what?”

He assures her that he can, and gives her a price, which she agrees to. “I can have it done by tonight, if you want to stop by around closing,” Zell tells her.

“I’ll be back first thing in the morning,” is her reply, and while Zell is still wavering on the edge of mentioning Seifer to her, she turns abruptly and strides out of the shop, leaving him to reflect on the encounter with mostly confusion. 

 

84.

“I ran into Fuujin the other day,” Zell mentions to Quistis a few days later.

“What? Where?”

“Here, in town. She came to the shop.”

There is a thoughtful pause on the other end of the line. “What did she want?” Quistis asks.

“Just a repair. She came and went really quickly.”

“I wonder what she’s doing in Balamb,” Quistis says quietly. Something in her tone makes Zell pause.

“Are you guys… in touch?”

“Not as such, no. We’ve… our paths have crossed a few times,” she admits. “She works for the White SeeD, and their ship is around the Cape more often than not. I don’t know what she’d be doing as far north as Balamb…”

“She’s a SeeD now?” Zell inquires, impressed. He’d always figured Fuujin and Raijin were only at Garden because Seifer was; he hadn’t figured Fuujin for having ambitions of being SeeD. 

“No, she’s the headmistress—“

“You’re joking,” Zell cuts in. Quistis laughs.

“No, I’m serious. What it is that they do exactly, I don’t really know, but Matron’s worked quite hard to keep the ship funded these past few years.”

“I didn’t even think White SeeD was still around,” Zell says.

“Well, they’re a little outside your sphere, aren’t they?” Quistis teases. There is a pause, and then she says, “did Seifer see her?”

“No, he wasn’t around. I… didn’t mention it to him.”

Another terse pause. Zell can feel Quistis trying to contain her disapproval. “Do you think that was a good thing to do?”

“I don’t know. She didn’t say anything about him,” Zell goes on uncertainly, “like ask if he was around, or anything. Probably she didn’t even know he was around. I mean, it’s not like he’s real sociable around town or whatever. He’s not really well-known.”

He doesn’t quite believe this himself, and he can tell by the silence across the line that Quistis doesn’t, either.

“I don’t remember seeing her and Raijin around Garden after… well, you know, when Seifer came back. What happened there?” he asks; he’s never much thought about it up until now, but their absence from Seifer’s life after the war was highly conspicuous. And Quistis’ long, tense hesitations were telling enough that something had happened there. A few moments more pass before she speaks.

“They did come back to Garden after the events at the Lunatic Pandora,” Quistis explains. “They didn’t stay for long… I don’t really know what happened. Something went bad between the three of them, I guess. Anyway, Fuujin and Raijin left Garden and ended up on the White SeeD ship, and Fuujin’s still there, you know. I’m not sure where Raijin is these days. I haven’t seen him in some time.”

Zell chews on this information for a minute. Every time he gets a question answered where it regards Seifer, a dozen more crop up in its place. He’s starting to feel like he’ll never get to the bottom of the complete enigma that is Seifer Almasy.

“You should ask Seifer about it,” Quistis says, as if that’s not extremely obvious. “Anyway, don’t you want to hear my news? I’m moving back to Balamb.”

“Really? Quis, that’s excellent! When are you gonna be back?”

“June, I think. Hopefully. Cid’s offered me a part-time teaching position at Garden, so… I’m coming back,” she says, and laughs. She sounds genuinely happier than Zell’s heard in a while, and Zell knows the feeling; having Quistis around all the time is something he’d never realized he missed until she was gone. “I’ll be in town next month, though, to look for a flat. Maybe you can help me. You know Balamb a lot better than I do these days.”

Zell has a sudden idea, and he hesitates only for a moment to say it in case it’s too much. Then he blurts it out. “You can have the house,” he says.

“What?”

“Well, you know… if you want it,” he adds, feeing awkward. “I was gonna rent it out over the summer, you know, for tourists… but I’d probably feel better if it was you living there; I know you’ll take care of the place. Anyway, you don’t want to be cooped up in some little flat with Fiona, do you? Kids need space and… stuff.”

Quistis is laughing by the time he finishes this little speech, and Zell feels relieved. “Are you sure, Zell?” she asks. “I mean, that’s… that’s generous.”

“Yeah, absolutely. What else am I gonna do with it?”

“Thank you. It’s… well, thank you,” Quistis says, sounding kind of choked up, which makes Zell embarrassed. “Fiona will be so excited to have her own bedroom. Oh, gosh, you and Seifer are going to be right up the street! She’ll be so happy.”

“Anything I can do to make you girls happy,” Zell replies, with complete sincerity.

 

85.

Seifer seems to be hanging around the shop more than usual, Zell thinks. He himself is usually downstairs from mid-morning to the early afternoon, or whenever Mr. Halverson shows up, but Seifer rarely even gets out of bed before noon. Today, however, he’s ventured downstairs during the daylight hours seemingly for no purpose other than to make snarky comments and distract Zell as much as he can.

“You’ve got customers,” Seifer remarks, while Zell is poring over an inventory sheet and trying to do math in his head - never a strong skill of his. “Hey, stupid. You paying attention?”

“I see ‘em,” Zell mutters, scratching out a line on the sheet with his pencil. It’s a group of teenage girls - Garden cadets, by their uniforms - and they’re probably just window shopping, so Zell doesn’t go out of his way to stop what he’s doing just yet. However, he turns to face Seifer, who has been loitering behind the counter like a pro for the last two hours. “‘Hey, stupid’? You’re losing your touch, Seifer. You used to be so good at insults.”

Seifer just laughs, and shakes his head. Never really quick to anger, he’s almost impossible to irritate these days, though Zell still tries just for the fun of it. “Actually, I take that back,” he says. “Your crowning achievement was ‘chicken-wuss’, so maybe you never were that good.”

Instead of getting annoyed, Seifer only smiles, and leans toward him a bit. “How would you prefer I call you? Darling? Sweetheart?”

“Asshole.”

“Light of my life,” Seifer says, and Zell hears a giggle from the group of girls. Heat creeps up his face, and he swats Seifer away from him.

“Quit it, you freak!”

“See, chicken-wuss doesn’t seem so bad now, does it?” Seifer asks, his tone teasing.

“If you’re not going to do anything useful, can you please just go away?” Zell growls, and Seifer - evidently satisfied that Zell has been thoroughly embarrassed in front of some customers - heads out the back door with his laughter still ringing in the air. “Can I help you?” he says abruptly, turning to the group of girls in the doorway; one of them gives a little shriek, and then all three run off into the street, leaving the store empty. “Wonderful,” Zell mutters to himself, and then goes back to his inventorying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> show of hands, who thought I forgot about Fuujin and Raijin?? (I did, tbh; I meant to work them back into the story much, much earlier than this... >_>)


	13. Junk

86.

“What are you doing?” Seifer asks, coming in the front door, and Zell looks up. His question isn’t accusatory or angry, but it certainly could be, because what Zell is doing at the kitchen counter is going through Seifer’s jewelry box.

“Snooping,” Zell admits.

“Why?”

“Curious,” he says, and Seifer gives him a look like he’s not sure whether to believe him or not. It is true that Zell’s never been known to suffer from curiosity where Seifer’s secrets are concerned - or, at least, he’s never shown it. Since Fuujin’s visit and his conversation with Quistis, however, the many questions that surround whatever happened between Seifer and his posse have been bubbling in the front of Zell’s mind more often than not.

If he expects Seifer to get irritated or possessive over his stuff, he finds himself disappointed at the other man’s response being nothing more than a shrug. Then again, Zell doesn’t even know what it takes to anger Seifer these days; he’s more mellow than Zell has ever known him in the entire course of their acquaintance. It should make him pleased, to know that Seifer is content and at peace, after so much struggle. But Zell’s not sure that’s the case.

“Where’d you get all this stuff, anyhow?” Zell asks, not really expecting an answer. The box is full of assorted odd items, not all jewelry, but all telling of something - they had to be, or why would Seifer have made the effort to keep this stuff all these years?

“Leave it alone,” Seifer says, coming to stand on the other side of the counter.

“You don’t wear this anymore,” Zell remarks, ignoring Seifer’s warning tone. He pulls out the silver necklace that used to be Seifer’s signature, running his thumb over the fine engraving on the inside. “What’s it say?”

Seifer only stares at him. He doesn’t look angry, but he doesn’t look particularly not-angry, either.

“I wanna know,” Zell says.

“Fuujin gave it to me. I don’t know what it says,” Seifer replies finally.

“Oh,” Zell mutters, trying not to look surprised. He shouldn't be shocked that the two tie in together. “Yeah, I haven’t seen her around much… are you guys still in touch?”

His attempt at a casual segue falls horribly flat as Seifer’s stare turns into a glower. Well, at least he’s getting something other than disinterest out of the other man, for once. “Throw it away,” Seifer says, turning away.

“I’m not gonna throw it away.”

“It’s junk.”

“It’s not _junk_ ,” Zell says, annoyed. “It obviously _means_ something to you—“

Seifer reaches out to grab the box, but Zell manages to keep his grip on it, and for a moment they both grapple with it. Then Seifer lets go abruptly, his expression sour. “Do whatever you want,” he growls, turning and walking away again. 

Zell listens to him banging around in the bedroom for a minute or two, feeling frustrated and somewhat unsatisfied with the whole exchange - he hadn’t gotten any answers, hadn’t done anything but piss Seifer off, from the look of things. Although that was at least something. “Alright, fine,” he says loudly, just to get on Seifer’s nerves, “I guess you don’t mind if I keep it, then.”

He fastens the necklace around his neck as Seifer walks back into the kitchen, grimacing. Zell shrugs, as though he’s completely unaware that Seifer is glaring murder at him. “I mean, since you don’t want it, right?”

“Zell, you're pissing me off.”

“It’s just junk, right? Why are you getting mad?”

Seifer closes the distance between them in two steps, and reaches out to hook two fingers under the necklace, jerking Zell forward. His face is inches away, and Zell doesn’t know the last time he saw Seifer look so dangerous. “Take it off,” he orders.

Zell refuses to budge. “Oh, so you want it after all?”

Seifer stares at him for a long, tense moment, and then releases him, huffing. “I don’t give a fuck what you do,” he declares, not that Zell believes that, before stomping off into the bedroom again. Zell remains in the kitchen for a while, rubbing at his neck and waiting for his heart to stop pounding.

 

87.

Quistis and Fiona move into the house at the end of May, and Zell spends a weekend helping them get situated. It’s a little strange, watching someone else make a home out of the place where he grew up - strange, but not unpleasant.

It doesn’t take Quistis long to notice the piece of jewelry around his neck, but she doesn’t comment, although she does get that expression like she’s been eating slices of raw lemon. Much later, when they’ve finished unpacking and Fiona is downstairs sleeping, Zell figures it’s time to get the interrogation over with. “If you’ve got something to say, Quis, just say it,” he remarks, while she makes a cup of tea. “Don’t stand there scowling at me all night.”

“Why are you wearing that?” she asks, right to the point.

“Mainly… just to piss Seifer off,” is his answer.

“What good reason could there _possibly_ be to do that?”

He relates the story of what happened between he and Seifer, and when Quistis doesn’t offer any comment, he adds, “look, I’m sick of being passive. If he admits he wants it, he can have it back.”

“Zell, for god’s sake. Are you thirteen or twenty-three?”

“You’re the one who told me I should be asking him stuff,” Zell says, and Quistis flounders for a moment without a reply to that. She hands him a mug of tea, and then goes to sit at the kitchen table with her own, looking thoughtful.

“You’re right,” she admits after a few moments, “it’s not really my place to say anything about yours and Seifer’s relationship. You know him better than I do, you know how to deal with him.”

“I’m not sure I do anymore,” Zell confesses. “I just… he’s always been hard to read, but the more I’m with him, the less I understand him at all. I don’t know what he’s thinking, or why he acts the way he acts, or why he’s even… with me at all,” he mutters, sipping his drink. Quistis stares at him for a long moment, studying, and then suddenly, she begins to laugh.

“Well, that sounds like your standard relationship insecurity to me,” she blurts, and when Zell goes red from his forehead to his chin, she only laughs harder.

 

88.

He’s in the back room of the junk shop one day when he has an idea.

“Did you ever think about doing something with that back room?” he asks Mr. Halverson, after giving it some thought. 

“Like what?”

“I mean… it’s a big space,” Zell says. “Seems a waste to just use it for storage.”

“My wife used to bother me about turning it into a showroom, but…” The old man shrugs. “I haven’t really thought about it since she’s been gone. If you have an idea, though…”

“There’s a lot of young kids coming in here these days, especially with so many new cadets at Garden now. Most of them don’t even know what they’re looking for, let alone how to pick out a weapon,” Zell explains. “If there were somewhere where they could learn… you know, test things out and find what works for them…”

Mr. Halverson’s expression is skeptical to begin with, and by the time Zell gets to the end of his explanation, he’s grinning. “You want to teach kids how to use weapons?” he asks.

“No, I…” Zell hesitates. “I didn’t mean me. You know way more—“

“Dincht, please. I hardly have the energy to hobble down here to the store every day,” the other man scoffs, which is true - he’s certainly much less present in the store than he was even a few months ago, when Zell began working there.

“Well, it was just an idea.”

“It was a good idea, just not for someone as old as me. You’d be good at it, though. You used to teach at Garden, right?”

Zell thinks back on that; his time at Garden almost seems like another lifetime these days. But he had been good at teaching, and he had enjoyed it, to an extent. Although his expertise was in martial arts, he’d always had good knowledge of weaponry in general. Teaching kids how to fight - how to kill, really - with or without weapons, though?

“I’ll let you just think about it, but consider my vote as for,” Mr Halverson says, but rather than reassuring Zell, the owner’s approval of his idea makes him a little uneasy. 

 

89.

The bell over the door jingles, and Zell looks up from the counter to see a young girl with a long sheet of dark hair entering. “Hey, Mr. Dincht!” she says cheerfully, waving at him.

“Hey, Kel,” he replies, stifling a sigh. He can’t get a lot of the kids to call him Zell; “Mr. Dincht” just makes him think of his granddad. “What are you doing here?”

“Window shopping,” she says, skipping over to the counter. Zell gives her a wry look.

“I mean, shouldn’t you be in class? It’s the middle of the day.”

“Term ended last week, _duh,_ ” she replies, motioning to the cute green sundress she’s wearing - civvies, not her usual cadet uniform. Zell rolls his eyes. “Is Seifer around? I wanna ask him some… stuff.”

“Some stuff?” Zell repeats, side-eyeing her. He might figure she has a crush on Seifer, except Kelly is a gunblade student at Garden and most of her questions are related to battle tactics (although Seifer mostly refuses to humor her, she never gives up.) “He’s not around, I don’t know where he is.”

“Did you guys have a fight?” she asks, her face a picture of innocence. Kelly reminds him a lot of Selphie - eternally chipper, a little too perceptive for comfort. He leans forward on the counter.

“Why do you ask?”

“You just, you have this kind of sourpuss look on your face like maybe you had a fight with your boyfriend.”

Zell doesn’t bother to correct her. “I don’t know,” he says, going for flip. “Is it a fight if the other person refuses to be mad at you?”

“Oh, please. My mum and dad are like always pissed at each other. Then, like, once a month, they have a huge row and get it all out of their systems. Maybe you guys just need to fight _more_ ,” she offers, as though she’s some kind of expert. Zell almost laughs, but stops himself. She’s probably genuinely trying to help, but Zell already knows what he has to do to make up with Seifer, and as it involves accepting the fact that Seifer is never going to tell him everything, Zell isn’t entirely eager to get on with it. He’s still hoping that maybe Seifer will get over his stubbornness first, but it’s a long hope.

“Are you here to buy something or what?” Zell says.

“I don’t get my allowance til next week.”

“Then why don’t you quit bothering me and come back when you’ve got money.”

Kelly isn’t put off by his brusque attitude, and she grins. “Alright, fine,” she says, “maybe by then you and Seifer will’ve made up and you won’t be such a _crab_.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Zell agrees, just to be snotty, and she just turns and flounces out.

 

90.

Zell lets Mr. Halverson close everything up at the end of the day, and goes into the back room to find Seifer, who’s taken on the task of clearing out the space back there for the past couple of weeks. It’s bigger than Zell expected, once they started moving things around, which makes him optimistic about the project of turning the area into a training space, although he’s not sure how he got stuck being in charge of it.

“Hey,” he says, and Seifer, sitting against the wall on the opposite side of the room, looks up. “Wanna grab something to eat?”

Seifer shakes his head, looking distracted - actually, he looks tired, and maybe like he’s been sitting there for a while worrying about something, not that Zell figures he’ll find out what. He hangs in the doorway for a moment. “Looks good in here,” he remarks.

“Good for what?” Seifer replies, sounding skeptical. Zell hasn’t really explained the whole idea to him yet - not intentionally, but mostly because he’s not certain the other man won’t think it’s stupid.

Zell goes over to sit on the floor next to him. “Look, are you mad at me?” he asks bluntly. “If you are, can you act like it, like yell at me or something? This silent treatment is for shit.”

“I’m not mad at you,” Seifer says, and it’s possible that he means it, so Zell waits a few moments for more. 

“You’re mad at something,” he states the obvious.

“Myself,” Seifer admits. “I just… I should…” He hesitates, make a frustrated sound. “I should know myself better, but you make me question everything. I questioned everything around me for such a long time, and now you’re making me question myself, do you know how much I hate that?”

“If this is about Fuujin and Raijin, you don’t have to tell me, okay? I don’t care anymore,” Zell lies. “Just forget I ever asked.”

“I can’t do that. You should know…” Seifer stares at his hands - he hasn’t looked at Zell once. “You should know what kind of a shitty person I really am, in case you were getting any ideas otherwise.”

“Are you kidding? After everything we’ve been through, what do you really think could make me think bad of you?”

“You’re gonna be angry, and…” Seifer trails off.

“What?”

“I don’t… want that,” he finishes, shaking his head. Zell might be touched by that, except he’s a little worried about what Seifer is trying to tell him; the other man has obviously been worrying himself over it. After a while, he says, “It’s not about Fuujin and Raijin.”

He falls silent again, and stays that way for a long time. In the distance, Zell hears the bell over the shop door ding - the old man leaving. The room grows dark around them slowly as Zell tries to decide on the best way to approach conversation again, or if he should at all. Maybe he should just leave now and relieve Seifer of the burden of trying to be honest with him.

“Whatever happened with them, it’s none of my business,” he says finally, looking over at Seifer, who’s staring at the ground. Zell scoots a little closer, close enough to let his arm brush against Seifer’s just a bit. “I can’t imagine… I mean, I’m not trying to… They betrayed you at your lowest point, okay? Whether or not you remember that, it’s not something you just get over. I’m sure it’s not something _they_ got over.”

Again, Seifer doesn’t answer. Zell loses track of how long they sit there in the dimming light before he gets up to turn the lights on, and then goes back to sit beside Seifer. He’s not thinking about giving up anymore; he’ll sit there as long as it takes to get Seifer to fess up.

“I betrayed them,” he says eventually.

“You didn’t know what you were doing—“

“I’m not talking about—“ Seifer interrupts him, and then stops short. “After that. They went back to Garden for me. They weren’t wanted, they were barely tolerated as much as I was. But they stuck around there for me.”

“And?”

“And? What do you think?” Seifer says bitterly. Zell isn’t sure he’s going to elaborate, but after a few seconds, he goes on, “I didn’t even know them. I didn’t remember… I had nothing. It took me two weeks to even learn Fuujin’s name, because I couldn’t _ask._ ”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Zell tries to reassure him, although he’s not sure either of them believe that. 

“I didn’t care, either,” Seifer goes on as though he doesn’t even hear Zell’s words. “They wanted to help me, and I wouldn’t let them. At the time, all I could see was you. Fuujin got fed up first and she left… Raijin might have stayed, but I told him not to bother. They didn’t even stay six months.”

“For fuck’s sake, Seifer,” Zell mutters. “I can’t believe what I’m hearing. You didn’t tell them anything? About your memories?”

“Wouldn’t have made a difference.”

“How do you know? Tell them now. It’s not too late, right?”

“Wouldn’t make a difference,” Seifer repeats, turning to finally look Zell in the eye. “Nothing’s changed. I’m not any better now than I was then.”

The words “all I could see was you” rattle in Zell’s head for a moment. Things are starting to slot together, and the picture that’s forming isn’t to his liking. 

“You’re pissed,” Seifer observes after a minute or two.

“Yeah.”

“It’s hard to even look at you sometimes, you know,” he goes on, and his eyes aren’t on Zell’s face - rather, he’s staring at Zell’s neck, where the silver necklace he’s still wearing just peeks out from the collar of his tee-shirt. “It just makes me think about all the things I’ve done wrong in the last few years.”

“You are something else,” Zell says quietly.

“I told you you’d be angry.”

“Fuujin and Raijin are probably the two people in the whole world who could have actually done something to _help_ you back then, you know that? And you picked me over them? Why wouldn’t I be angry that you did something so monumentally stupid?”

“You think I made the wrong choice,” Seifer says, and it’s not a question.

“Yes!” Zell replies vehemently, before he can think twice about it - though it’s true. The other man only nods.

“Alright,” Seifer says, and he stands up. “Good to know.”

“Wait,” Zell says, but he has no idea what to follow that with. He lets Seifer go without further conversation and doesn’t have the energy to pursue.


	14. Acts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll just leave this here and... *runs away*

91.

Zell wakes up early one June day surprised to find Seifer already up before him, which is odd, because Seifer is never up at dawn unless he’s been up all night. He’s standing at the kitchen counter eating toast when Zell shuffles in, and he waits with an air of politeness as Zell makes a cup of tea and tries to rouse himself. He’s always been a morning person - at least, more of one than Seifer - but lately he hasn’t been sleeping very well. He doesn’t have to think hard for the reason why, either.

“Are you going to the cemetery today?” Seifer asks, the first thing he’s said to Zell in days, since their last conversation in the back room of the shop. It’s not like they ever talked a whole lot in any case, but Seifer definitely knows how to stretch a silence out when he’s making a point. 

“Yeah.”

“Can I come with?”

Zell regards him for a moment. He goes up to visit his Ma’s grave fairly often, at least once or twice a month, and Seifer has never gone with him, nor expressed any wish to do so. Rather than a lack of interest in going, Zell rather had always figured it was due to a desire of not intruding too much - which was just silly, really, because they had only gotten where they are now because of Seifer’s intrusions into his life. 

“Yeah, sure. Of course.”

They stop at the market on the way out of town and Zell buys as many flowers as he and Seifer can carry between them - he’s got a lot of graves to visit. They drive up into the hills behind Garden in Mr. Halverson’s old truck, and Zell makes his rounds. Seifer waits by the truck as Zell wanders around, taking his time, and finally finishes his circuit back at Ma’s grave. They sit in the grass and listen to the warm breeze whistling through the trees, and Zell tries to wrap his head around the notion that she’s already been gone for a whole year.

Around noon, Quistis shows up, with Fiona in one hand and a picnic basket in the other. The toddler runs around redistributing Zell’s flowers at her own artistic discretion while they eat sandwiches and fruit. In the afternoon, when they head back into town, Selphie is waiting for them at the house with batches of homemade cookies and a cheerful enthusiasm to see him that Zell just can’t bear to disappoint. Nearly the whole day is gone by the time he and Seifer manage to escape home that evening.

“So, who planned all this today?” he asks, later, getting ready for bed. Seifer just looks at him puzzled. “I know it wasn’t you… too sweet.”

“It was all Trepe’s idea.”

“And you went along with it why?” Zell says, only too late hearing the bitterness in his tone. Seifer gives him a studying look.

“I thought it was a good one,” he answers, like that’s obvious. “Your friends just want you to be happy… you should let them help you.”

“Well, I don’t want to be pitied,” Zell says flippantly.

“Then learn the difference between an act of friendship and an act of pity.”

“You’re a total hypocrite. You don’t let anyone help you, not even me, and all I want to do is help you,” Zell argues.

“I have accepted the fact that I am beyond help,” Seifer replies with an air of grace, pulling a tee-shirt over his head. Zell scoffs.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Seifer says. “Selphie and Quistis went out of their way to do something nice for you today so that you wouldn’t be miserable, and I let them because I thought it would be good for you to see how much they obviously love you. Quit acting like it’s some kind of burden to have people care about you.”

Seifer’s point is valid, and Zell finds he can’t muster a counter argument; he’s grown so used to the other man’s cool nonchalance over the years that he almost forgot how normal people show affection. Suddenly he feels like an ungrateful brat, and it must show in his face, because when Seifer looks back at him he rolls his eyes.

“Are you gonna cry?”

“No,” Zell spits, which is a lie, because he really feels like doing just that.

“Good, then I’m going to bed.”

Zell follows suit a few minutes later, feeling rattled and raw. He just wanted to get through this day without a breakdown, but when he crawls under the covers next to Seifer and the other man is waiting with open arms to pull him into an embrace, Zell knows it’s futile to resist.

 

92.

“Nida asked me to marry him,” Quistis remarks suddenly.

“What? Really?” She nods, and Zell chews on the thought for a moment as they make their way leisurely down the street. “I mean… I guess it’s always been kind of obvious that he’s had a thing for you, but… wow.”

“I said yes,” she informs him next. 

“ _Really?_ ” Zell blurts, and then immediately backpedals before Quistis can get offended, “I mean, never mind… scratch that. I always say the wrong thing. Congratulations.”

“You’re more surprised that I said yes than that he asked?”

Zell shrugs, not knowing how to answer, and she laughs. “This is the eighth time he’s asked me over the last four years,” Quistis remarks.

“Shit,” Zell says with a grin. “Yeah, that sounds like him.” Nida might be persistent to the point of stupidity sometimes, but he definitely has guts - Zell figures most men wouldn’t have the courage to propose to a woman like Quistis even once.

“The first time was right after I found out I was pregnant,” she explains. “He said he wanted to be there for Fiona and I, but I was… well, I figure it’s time to let him.”

She trails off with a shrug, and silence falls between them. Zell thinks that it’s probably a perfect moment to finally ask her whether or not Nida is Fiona’s father - if there’s such a thing as a perfect moment for that. He doesn’t say anything, and lets the moment pass.

“Congratulations,” he says again after a couple of minutes, as they come around the corner toward the house. “I mean it, really… I’m happy for you.”

“So you’ll come to my wedding, right?” Quistis asks, smiling and squinting at him in the bright sunlight. “I want you to be there. You and Seifer, I mean, I want you both to come.”

“Just name the day.”

“It’s Friday.”

Zell pauses. “This Friday?” he says to clarify, and Quistis nods. “That’s, uh…”

“Fast,” she finishes for him. “It’s not going to be anything special. Most of Nida’s family is in Dollet… we’re just going to the courthouse to sign the paperwork, and then maybe go out to dinner afterward. All the same, I want you to come.”

“Of course,” Zell assures her, and she beams at him before reaching out to grip him in a tight hug. It occurs to Zell that she was actually nervous that he might say no, and he feels a little wretched for all the times he’s been cold to her lately - the feeling only lasts a few moments, though, because when she lets him go she looks happier than Zell has ever seen her look, and it’s hard not to share the feeling.

 

93.

Zell is drunk, and he doesn’t like being drunk, but he consoles himself that at least he’s not as drunk as Seifer. Or Quistis, who had to be carried home by Nida, not bridal-style, but on piggyback after she fell in the street and broke the heel off her shoe. Seifer is still laughing about it as they walk home through the quiet Balamb streets in the early hours of the morning.

“Thanks for coming with,” Zell says as they get back to the flat.

“You say that like you think I’d have refused,” Seifer replies.

“Well… I mean, you’re not exactly sociable.”

“You really think I’m a complete asshole, huh? Like I would do something so fucking rude as to not go to Trepe’s wedding,” Seifer says, following Zell into the dark apartment.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Zell says defensively. “Never mind.”

He walks into the kitchen but doesn’t turn the lights on, and stands there for a few moments, lost in thought. He should go right to bed; it’s late and he’s been drinking, but he’s not tired. Seifer comes over to stand beside him eventually. “What’s on your mind, Dincht?” he asks after some time.

“I dunno,” Zell says softly. “I guess… I never figured Quistis as the marrying type, y’know? Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad she’s happy…”

“You have a gift for understatement, Zell. I never saw Trepe so happy as she was today,” Seifer remarks, and Zell decides to take his word for it - Seifer has a knack for seeing a lot further than he does. “They obviously care about each other a lot.”

“It’s just, they’re not exactly mad and passionate about each other, are they?”

“Not all loves are mad and passionate,” Seifer says quietly. Zell thinks about that for a moment, and then laughs.

“Like you’re some kind of expert!”

Seifer only shrugs, and they fall silent again. Zell’s mind starts to wander. It’s not that he’s not genuinely happy for Quistis - far from it. “I just gotta wonder what she pictured,” he says eventually, “you know? Like when she thought about her future, was married with a kid at the end of it?”

“What you picture is not always what you want,” is Seifer’s answer, and Zell supposes he’s probably right about that, too. “What about you, what did you picture? Was it this?”

Zell knows what he means - the little flat, the unglamorous job in the junk shop, the quiet domesticity of his life with Seifer - no, none of it is what he imagined his life would be. “Guess I never really thought much about it before… you know… everything that happened. What about you?”

Seifer shrugs again. “Who knows? Glory… fame…” He pauses. “Or infamy, maybe. I probably pictured myself changing the world. Well, I’ve done that, and honestly, this quiet kind of life beats that shit by miles and miles.”

Zell giggles, not really because anything Seifer has said is funny, but more out of relief. If someone had told him, six or seven years ago, that his future was with Seifer, he’d never have believed it - but now, suddenly and for the first time, Zell is confident that he’s living exactly the life he was meant to. Seifer stares at him until the laughter subsides, but he doesn’t say anything for a long while, just stands close beside him in the dark kitchen.

“I want to make something really, absolutely clear to you, Zell,” the other man says finally, and all of a sudden he sounds much more sober. Zell turns to look at him, but the dim glow of the streetlight outside the small window above the sink isn’t enough to illuminate Seifer’s features. “I don’t think I made the wrong choice, when I chose you back then. I don’t regret it and I never have regretted it. I’d make the same choice again,” he declares. Then he pauses, but not long enough for Zell to recover his wits and make some kind of response before continuing, “in fact, I wouldn’t change a single thing I’ve done over the last six years if any of it meant that I wouldn’t be standing exactly here, next to you, right now.”

“Fuck,” Zell manages.

“Okay… that’s one response.”

“I don’t know what to say when you come out with that shit,” he adds, rubbing his forehead. His mind is whirling - not because he’s drunk, because he’s really not that much, but because this conversation has taken an overwhelming turn he wasn’t prepared for.

“Agreeing with me would be cool, for a start,” Seifer says.

“I do, yeah, just…”

“Just you don’t wanna say it.”

“You drive me nuts, you know that?” Zell huffs, and Seifer turns to face him finally, making Zell realize how close they’re really standing - almost too close to actually focus on Seifer’s expression, which is partly amused and partly annoyed, among other things. “Every time I think I’ve almost got you figured out, you go and throw another wrench in and… I just don’t know when I’ll ever understand you,” Zell blurts, refusing to look away; he’s not embarrassed, because chances are Seifer already knows all this anyway - he usually knows more about Zell’s mind than Zell knows himself. 

He leans forward a little, and his gaze drops down from Zell’s face to a spot lower - he’s staring at the necklace again, the little shard of silver that peeks out from under the collar of Zell’s button-down shirt. “Are you gonna admit you want this back?” Zell asks.

“Nah,” Seifer replies, but he reaches out to slide a finger between Zell’s skin and the metal plate, his touch warm. “I like it better on you…”

“How drunk are you?”

Seifer shrugs, but his touch travels upward, over Zell’s jawline and the side of his face. He skims his fingertips through Zell’s hair, brushing a few long strands away from his forehead. “So I drive you nuts, huh?” he remarks, and when Zell nods, Seifer smirks a little. “Good, that was the plan.”

“You’re full of shit,” Zell mutters, but when Seifer leans closer, grazing his lips over Zell’s temple, he doesn’t feel the slightest urge to move away. “Seifer, you are drunk,” he declares.

“So are you.”

“I am not,” Zell argues. The other man sighs, his breath warm against Zell’s cheek.

“You’re supposed to lie. So, you know… this is okay,” Seifer whispers, and whether he means the closeness, or the confessions, or the touching, Zell doesn’t know - not that it matters.

“It’s okay anyway,” he whispers back, and there’s some relief in just saying it aloud. “It’s all okay.”

 

94.

Quistis stops by the store late the next afternoon, on her way to pick up Fiona from the sitter’s. “Wanna walk with me?” she invites Zell along, and it’s a beautiful summer day, so he’s glad to step out of the quiet, drowsy atmosphere of the shop to accompany her.

“How was your weekend?” he asks conversationally; in lieu of a honeymoon, she and Nida had spent a couple of nights at the Balamb Grand Hotel, which was as close to a high-class getaway as you could get without flying off the island. Quistis sighs, and puts her hands up to her cheeks as though she’s bashful.

“Oh, it was amazing,” she declares, “I laid on the beach, got a massage, ordered room service… I slept in every day without once being woken up by a toddler asking me to get her a snack or some juice or turn on the TV or to braid her hair. It was practically paradise.”

She’s joking, and Zell chuckles. “That’s your idea of a dream honeymoon, huh?”

“It’s the little things, Zell.”

She seems happy and relaxed, so he doesn’t tease her about it. They walk in comfortable silence through the streets of Balamb. “How about you?” she asks after a bit.

“Me?”

“How was your weekend?”

“Oh… pretty much… nothing special,” Zell replies with a shrug.

“I was watching you and Seifer the other night. Stumbling home all drunk…” Quistis teases, but her tone is mostly affectionate. “You guys were cute together.”

Zell thinks about some of the things Seifer did to him that night, and he definitely wouldn’t describe any of them as “cute”.

“I know you probably don’t like that,” she goes on, shaking her head, but smiling. “Look, I don’t want this to come off the wrong way, but… it’s nice to see you being happy, you know? I know things haven’t been easy over the last few years, so… it’s a nice change.”

“You’re embarrassing me,” Zell mutters, and she punches him playfully on the arm.

“I know, I’m trying to!”

Zell thinks about her words for a couple of minutes as they walk together. “To be honest, Seifer is really easy to be with,” he admits. “I think I’m the difficult one in the relationship. You’d think it’d be the other way around, huh?”

“Hmm… maybe, but I suspect he’d say the same thing about you,” Quistis says sagely, and since she’s probably right, Zell decides not to embarrass himself further by pursuing the subject.

 

95.

Summer rolls away into fall and the rainy season, although it doesn’t mean the days get any cooler - just wetter. Zell finds he doesn’t really mind; rainy days spent in bed have their appeal. Still, the shop isn’t going to open itself, so in the early afternoon he makes an effort to drag himself out of bed, only to be thoroughly hampered by Seifer.

“Where are you going?”

“Work,” Zell says, making a feeble attempt to dislodge Seifer’s arm from around his waist.

“It’s pouring rain outside, who do you think is going to be out shopping?”

“I’ve got other stuff to do,” he mutters, because it’s the end of the month so there’s always inventory to be checked, not to mention parts shipments that will be arriving next week, and the new floor in the back room is only half-finished - Zell doesn’t know how he ended up being responsible for all of that.

“Do it tomorrow. It’s already the afternoon, the day’s practically over,” Seifer counters; Zell knows he’s mostly joking, because the other man wouldn’t really stop Zell from going if he thought he actually wanted to get out of bed and go to work. He really doesn’t want to, though, so he gives in with very little resistance.

“What’s with you lately?” Zell asks after a while, as they both lay there - not sleeping, just enjoying the silence. When Seifer raises an eyebrow in question, Zell elaborates, “You’re awfully clingy.”

Seifer gives a kind of half-shrug but he doesn’t make the slightest move to disentangle himself from Zell, and Zell laughs. “Not like I’m _complaining_ or anything,” he adds.

“Really? You sound a little bit like you are.”

“It’s kind of… a change.”

“Yeah,” Seifer agrees, and Zell isn’t sure he’s going to elaborate. After a while, though, he goes on, “I just had this sort of… sudden… realization.”

“Yeah?” Zell prompts.

“It’s stupid.”

“You’re stupid, tell me.”

Seifer shakes his head. “No, it’s kind of… I don’t know how to explain,” he says.

“Try using words,” Zell suggests, half-teasing, but Seifer only stares past him, apparently too lost in thought to indulge in teasing.

Eventually, he asks, “what was it like for you?”

It doesn’t immediately hit Zell what he means, but after a few moments of thought, he understands - Seifer asked him this once before, years ago, but he wasn’t really prepared to answer the question then… he’s not sure he is now, either.

“I guess… you’re right, it is really hard to describe,” he answers, thinking about that dark, shifting, in-between place they all went to… that place he might have been lost in, but for the faint echo of somebody calling his name; to this day he can’t remember who it was, or maybe he never knew in the first place - everything was so jumbled together, nothing was clear. He’s spent so long trying to forget it that it’s almost hard to recall details now that he actively wants to. “Like… the worst nightmare I’ve ever had, but forever.”

It was much more than that, of course - as if every bad memory, every pain he’d ever felt or ever would feel, were all happening simultaneously, as if nothing existed in that place except what could cause suffering and despair. Zell had wondered more than once if that was by design, if Ultimecia had intended that anyone who tried to follow her through there would be trapped in a little slice of their own personal hell - Seifer had said that the experience was different for everyone. But he doesn’t know nearly enough about the mechanics, or logics, if there are any, of time compression, and he has next to no desire to learn about it, either.

Zell doesn’t exactly know how to put any of that into words, but it’s probably not necessary - he’s sure Seifer knows what he means. “It just… felt like it would never end,” he says after a while. “I mean, I know it was… only a few days had passed by the time we came back. But it felt like weeks, months.” Squall and Quistis had piled on the GFs in the weeks following their return, which Zell had figured must be out of desperation to erase the memories of whatever they encountered in their own experiences in that place - though he never asked either of them if that worked. “You actually _were_ there for weeks,” Zell remarks after having a sudden thought. “It must have seemed like… years and years.”

“I guess I’d resigned myself to the fact that it would never end,” Seifer replies, shrugging again, like the idea of spending eternity stuck in an endless loop of pain and suffering was no big deal. “It was hard to come back to reality… you know that, anyway. I doubted myself, everything I saw, for a long, long time,” Seifer explains, his voice quiet against the background noise of steady rainfall. 

“But not anymore, huh?” Zell says, because that seems to be where Seifer is headed. The other man smiles a little.

“It occurred to me that this time… the years we’ve been together, it’s already longer than the time I spent in that place,” Seifer murmurs, “so… that must mean this is the real, you know, reality, right? This life that I’m… spending here with you… this is where I actually exist.”

“You’re denser than me sometimes,” Zell scoffs - but really, it’s all he can do to make some kind of response under the crushing relief that washes over him. “If you were gonna dream up some kind of imaginary life, would it really be this mundane?”

“I told you it was stupid,” Seifer replies, but he doesn’t seem annoyed, nor does he seem reticent, the way he has been before when this subject came up. He seems - and Zell’s not 100% on this, because he’s not sure he’s ever actually seen it before - but he seems happy, as though laying here in bed on a rainy day and telling Zell all about his fucked-up mindspace is all he could want. “Spent nearly six years trying to decide whether or not you were real… always afraid you might just vanish from right in front of me if I said the wrong thing or looked at you the wrong way… I wasted a lot of time, didn’t I?”

“Is that what he did?” Zell blurts out before he can think twice about asking, and he hesitates, feeling self-conscious as Seifer watches him with a curious look. “I mean, the… whatever version of me existed there, the one she created. He just showed up all the time, and then vanished, just to fuck with you, or what?”

Seifer stares at him for a long time, as if he’s never actually given the matter thought before. Zell, on the other hand, has thought about it so much since the first time Seifer told him about his role in the other man’s version of hell that the curiosity nearly drives him mad sometimes. “It wasn’t all the time,” Seifer says after a long pause. “Sometimes it felt like I was alone. Sometimes there were others… Rinoa, a lot. But she was… scary. Better when you showed up.”

“But you know that that’s not me, right? This is… this is reality, you know? That me that existed in your head or… I dunno, wherever it was, that wasn’t real.”

“It was real to me, I experienced it,” Seifer says, and his brusque tone takes Zell by surprise, but he doesn’t seem offended - just serious. “But I know what you mean. You’re not him. I get it.”

“Well, it took you long enough… I could have told you that from the start, if you’d asked,” Zell says, as though it should have been obvious - and, well, it should have been, if Seifer were anyone else. Still… 

“You know, it’s like you said, though,” he continues after a long interlude of silence, listening to the gentle, steady thrum of rain against the roof above them. “Everything that’s happened, the choices that have been made, I wouldn’t do it differently if I did it again. I’m sure we both could have done a lot better, but… Well, there aren’t any regrets on my end, okay?”

“You really mean that?”

“I don’t say things I don’t mean, stupid,” Zell mutters, feeling embarrassed despite himself. “While I’m at it, here’s another one - I won’t be doing any vanishing acts, so feel free to say or think, or… or look at me however you want, okay? Without… without any… fear,” he concludes, red-faced and mumbling. He would have thought they were at a point where this kind of stuff didn’t need to be said, but then again, maybe it’s time to stop basing their relationship on unsaid things. 

Seifer evidently is in agreement, because a grin lights up his face, half-buried in the pillow next to Zell; his hair, which he usually keeps short, is a little overgrown now, long enough to fall down over his eyes and to cover the scar that cuts between them, which is so faded nowadays that it’s hardly noticeable from a distance of more than a few feet. Zell tries to remember a time when waking up and seeing Seifer’s face next to him didn’t feel natural, but it feels like another life.

“That a promise?”

“Yeah, it is,” Zell says, defiant in response to Seifer’s laughter.

“Alright, then, I’ll hold you to it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know updates have gotten sporadic again, and I'm sorry... (I stuck to my plan of updating every week for a total of two whole weeks... but even than was more than I expected >_>) Feedback is always appreciated, especially if you're enjoying the story, or if you're not! And on that subject, since we're getting toward the end here, is there anything you guys feel is missing from the story? Any gaping plot holes I neglected to fill? Anything you'd like to see me add? I know there were a lot of things I'd have liked to explore more while writing this, but I didn't because the story would end up going on forever... anyway, opinions are welcome (and encouraged!) :)


	15. Communication

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *casually sidles in as though it hasn't been six months since I posted a new chapter*

96.

When classes start again in the fall and Quistis goes back to Garden, Zell and Seifer get stuck with babysitting duty three afternoons a week - not that Zell minds at all, really, because Fiona is about the best behaved child he’s ever met; most afternoons, she sits and colors or reads picture books, or makes up stories and recites them to Zell while he’s doing boring work around the shop. If she’s really energetic, he lets her run around in the back room with the padded training gear until she exhausts herself - but the space is still under construction, so he’s got to keep her out of Seifer’s way while the other man works.

“What are you working on, squirt?” he asks her one day, as she’s sitting at the little table behind the counter with her box of art supplies and a huge sheet of construction paper. She’s a pretty good artist for a three-year-old - Zell already has a wall filling up with the drawings she passes off to him during her visits.

“Grandpa Cid wants me to draw him a picture for his office,” she says, and she stuffs a cookie in her mouth with one hand as she carefully - meticulously, even - outlines her drawing with a black colored pencil.

“Oh, yeah? What are you drawing?”

“Everybody,” she says, and Zell peeks over her shoulder. Her picture somewhat resembles a family photo, with several people standing in a row, although the toddler seems to have taken some artistic liberties where accuracy is concerned. “Can you help me with the spelling?” Fiona asks, looking up at him. “You can have some of my cookies, too.”

Zell can’t refuse that, so he takes a seat next to her and grabs a pencil. “That’s Grandpa Cid and Matron,” Fiona explains, and he carefully write down their names as she points.

“How come he’s ‘Grandpa’ but she’s not ‘Grandma’?” Zell asks.

“I dunno, that’s just how she’s called,” Fiona answers with a shrug, and Zell laughs. Next to Cid and Edea in the picture is clearly Selphie, with a big smile on her face and a bright yellow dress. Beside her Fiona has endearingly drawn her mum in the blue dress she wore for her wedding, with a bouquet of flowers in her hand. The figure next to Quistis isn’t as easily discernible, and Zell studies it for a moment.

“Who’s this supposed to be?”

“It’s my dad.”

“Why does he look so evil?” Zell asks, because the toddler gave Nida a pair of red, glowing eyes and a strange antenna-like object attached to his head. Fiona shakes her head vehemently.

“He’s not evil, he’s a robot!” she declares, handing Zell a cookie, and taking another one for herself.

“You shouldn’t say that, Fiona, that’s not nice,” Zell chides.

“No, it’s true! He told me himself! And his arm comes off and everything.”

“I think technically he’s actually a cyborg. He’s still mostly human,” Seifer chimes in, sticking his head around the corner with a little smirk on his face. Zell gives him what’s supposed to be a quelling stare, but Fiona looks excited, hurrying to scribble out the painstakingly-written “ROBO” she had been working on.

“How do you spell that?”

Zell tries to convince her to write “Dad” instead, while Seifer comes over to inspect the drawing himself. “Nice tattoo, Dincht,” he teases, pointing at the exaggerated flower doodles Fiona’s drawn all over him. Zell frowns up at the other man.

“I think they’re nice,” he remarks, and Fiona nods in agreement. “Maybe I’ll get some like that on the other side of my face, that’ll make it symmetrical. Whaddaya think?” he asks, nudging the toddler, who’s stuffing another cookie in her mouth.

“I’ll do it!” she declares, snatching up a green marker and taking it to Zell’s face, which only makes Seifer laugh and roll his eyes as he disappears around the corner again.

 

97.

Zell is reluctant to disrupt Quistis’ good mood in the weeks following her wedding, but he knows he can’t put off asking her the question he wants to ask forever. Sure enough, when he does, she looks up from the salad she’s putting together with no trace on her expression of the smile that was there just moments before.

“You want to get in touch with Fuujin?” she repeats, managing to look stern while squeezing a lemon onto her salad. “Why?”

“So we can be pen pals,” Zell says, a little too sarcastically - Quistis squints at him. “Why do you think, Quis?”

“Well, I don’t know… I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to contact her,” she says.

“Quisty, I’m sorry, this is gonna sound really rude, but I don’t care what you think about it,” Zell say truthfully, but gently. Quistis looks round at him, but she doesn’t seem angry or offended, and Zell goes on, “all I want to know is if you can get in touch with her for me. If you can’t, then… fine. I’ll find another way.”

“I can, but… I don’t know,” she says again, setting down her lemon and her salad and wiping her hands busily on a dishtowel. “If you’re going to try and force some kind of, I dunno, reconciliation on her and Seifer, I think that’s a very bad idea-“

“That’s not what I’m trying to do,” Zell cuts in, although he doesn’t know why he has to defend his reasons to her. “I just… want to talk to her.”

Quistis only stares at him, clearly still skeptical. 

“Look,” he says eventually, rising from his seat at the kitchen table, “you’re the one who’s been telling me all this time to ask questions, ask questions… well, I’ve got questions now, and Seifer can’t answer them for me, so I’ve got to find someone who can. Right?”

“Well, I just think…” Quistis begins, and then breaks off, looking thoughtful. She shakes her head. “Well, never mind.”

“What?”

“It’s nothing, it’s stupid.” She looks sheepish. “You’re right, of course. It’s your life, it’s your relationship, you know what’s best…”

“But?” Zell prompts.

“It just seems like things have been so good lately… why do you want to stir up trouble?” she asks, hesitantly. “You’re just going to cause yourself more grief… Why not enjoy the peace while you’ve got it?”

Her chagrined expression seems to say that she realizes she’s out of line, but Zell finds it in him to appreciate the sentiment anyway - she really just wants him to be happy. “Forget I said anything,” Quistis goes on the next moment, shaking her head again and bringing her salad to the table. “You’re a grown man, you can take care of yourself. I’m just… being such a mum these days,” she mutters.

“It’s fine, Quis,” Zell says, and there’s relief on her face as she smiles at him. “Anyway, if you don’t take care of us, who’s going to?”

 

98.

Seifer is laying on the floor in the back room, staring up at the ceiling, when Zell goes looking for him in the evening. “What are you doing?” he asks, wondering if the other man is sleeping, but he sits up when Zell approaches and takes a seat on the floor beside him.

“It looks really good in here,” Zell remarks after a moment when it’s clear Seifer isn’t in the mood to talk. “I’m impressed… you’re surprisingly good at building stuff.”

“Why’s that surprising? You thought I was only good at destroying things?”

Seifer’s tone isn’t bitter even if his words are, and Zell wants to ask if he’s alright, but he knows from experience that that kind of inquiry is likely to just be ignored. Instead, he says, “so, what are you working on now? Anything I can help with?”

Seifer mutters something that Zell doesn’t catch, and then, “what do you think?”

“The room? It’s nice,” Zell says, looking around. “It’s really nice. I think Mr. Halverson’s gonna love it.”

“I don’t care if he does or not. I asked what _you_ think.”

“Well, I love it,” Zell says, which is the truth, because he’s not really sure what Seifer’s after. 

“Hmm,” Seifer says. “What are you gonna do now, then?”

“What do you mean?”

“You really wanna give kids killing lessons back here? You know the old man’s not going to want anything to do with it,” Seifer explains. “I get the feeling he’s just waiting to retire and pass it off to you as soon as you’re ready. Everything, the shop and all.”

Zell has gotten that feeling, too, but he’s not certain yet if it’s something he wants. “It won’t be like that,” he says instead. “Real basic stuff… for kids who don’t know how to fight or don’t know how to pick a weapon. No killing. Anyway, more importantly, what are _you_ going to do now? We’re gonna have to find a new project for you.”

“What am I, a kindergartener?”

“Oookay,” Zell mutters, getting up from the floor. “You’re touchy, so… I’ll go.”

“No, wait,” Seifer stops him, grabbing his wrist. “Just… shut up a while and… don’t go anywhere, okay?”

“You’re really such a pain, you know?” Zell grumbles, but only for the sake of grumbling, because really, Seifer never asks him for anything - it’s certainly no hardship to oblige him this once.

 

99.

Fall comes and goes with no end in sight to the heat wave that settled unnaturally over the town so late in the year. Zell wakes up one morning with warm sunlight streaming across the bed, and wonders if it can really almost be Christmas already.

“What are you doing today?” Seifer asks him after a while, after they’ve both laid there for a while watching the bright strips of light from the window move from one side of the bed to the other.

“Thought about maybe going to the beach.”

“I meant, like… work.”

“I don’t think I feel like working today,” Zell replies, and Seifer arches an eyebrow at him. “Do you wanna come with me?”

“To the beach?”

“Yeah. I only just thought about it, but… I haven’t been there in a long time. So…” Zell shrugs, trailing off. 

“Okay, sure. That sounds nice.”

Despite Seifer’s agreement, neither of them make any effort to get out of bed for a long while. After some time, Zell gathers up his courage to say, “happy birthday.”

Seifer makes a noise that’s something between a grunt and a sigh. “Is it?” he asks lightly, and then sits up and slides out of bed. Zell gives a little chuckle.

“Man, I wish I could have the luxury of forgetting my own birthday. Between Quistis and Selphie I’m lucky if I get through it without a parade.”

Seifer doesn’t reply, just shuffles out of the room leaving Zell to wonder if he maybe shouldn’t have said anything. He knows the other man is a little touchy on the subject of birthdays, and Zell doesn’t want to make a big deal out of it, which Seifer wouldn’t appreciate anyway. But all the same, he can’t let it go _completely_ unacknowledged.

They head out in the early afternoon, and there are a few people scattered up and down the beach despite it being the middle of the day. But people aren’t what Zell’s looking for, so he and Seifer wander further downshore, winding through the dunes, until all the people sounds have been washed away by the steady rhythm of the breaking waves. “I used to come to the beach a lot,” he remarks, watching the rise and fall of the waves.

“Yeah, me too,” Seifer says. “At first, you know.”

“Hm. I guess when you grow up by the ocean, the noise gets to be comforting, huh?” Zell says.

“It’s the quiet I like,” is Seifer’s answer. Zell’s not sure he agrees - it’s anything but quiet here; and he remembers those early days after returning to Garden, when he would come out to the beach to sit with his eyes closed and get lost in the sound of the ocean, just to escape his own mind for a little bit. He has to wonder what kind of mess Seifer’s head really was if this place seemed peaceful in comparison.

“Let’s go out to the sandbar,” Zell says, going up to the water’s edge and kicking off his shoes. When Seifer hangs back, he goes on, “have you ever been out to the cove? Probably not, huh, cause you never played around Balamb as a kid. The view’s awesome.”

Seifer says nothing and just stares at him. Zell wonders if he can convince the other man. “Come on, the weather’s so great. And there won’t be anyone out there. It’s so far, people don’t go out there a lot. Besides me, I guess.”

“How far?”

“I dunno… twenty minutes, half hour maybe.”

“You wanna swim out that far?”

Zell peers at him, wading back and forth in the surf. “You can’t swim?”

“I can swim fine. I just don’t fancy drowning.”

Zell can’t help but think that’s a really strange way to put it, but he doesn’t comment. Instead, he says, “well, we don’t have to swim. There’s a sandbar. It goes all the way around the cliffs, we can walk there.” He points to the stretch of sand that’s just visible through the clear blue water, arching out of sight where the beach turns into rocks. Seifer looks skeptical. “Trust me, I know the way,” Zell tries to reassure him. “I’ve been there a hundred times. Just stay right behind me.”

Seifer, with some reluctance, trails behind him as he makes his way down the beach. The water is cool even if the day is unseasonably warm, and Zell reflects on how long it’s actually been since he came to the beach for enjoyment - not since he was a teenager, at least. After a while, they lose sight of the town behind them, following the curve of the sandbar out into the ocean and then back toward shore again. Despite the years it’s been since Zell came out here, he still does know the way.

“Why come all the way out here?” Seifer asks, looking around at the unimpressive little cove, the cliffside studded with rocks, while Zell begins to climb.

“The view’s worth it, I promise.”

Seifer follows him up the rocks without argument, and by the time they reach the top, the sun is already starting to go down, streaks of red and pink showing on the western horizon. The cove is isolated and the view is completely unimpeded out toward the west; the endless expanse of ocean, glittering with warm colors under the setting sun, is all that can be seen. Seifer doesn’t say anything, either to confirm or deny Zell’s comment about the view, but after a while he remarks, “it’s getting dark, you know.”

“Yeah, that usually happens when the sun goes down.”

“Quit being a smartass. How are you planning to get back to town in the dark?” Seifer asks.

“Why, are you afraid of the dark?” Zell retorts, but he’s not sure if he might have teased the other man too much for one day, so he adds, “look, I told you I know the way. There’s almost a full moon. We’ll be fine.” After a while, when there’s no reply, Zell says cheekily, “if you’re worried about getting lost, you can hold my hand the whole way.”

“I’m not worried,” Seifer replies, finally. “I couldn’t lose you if I wanted to, could I?”

Zell grins in the dark, but he can’t disagree.

 

100.

Winter sweeps into town with chilly winds and rainstorms, and a strange sight on the horizon. Both Balamb and Galbadia Gardens have been stationary since the end of the war, so the almost-ghostly image of a white ship approaching town through the fog and rain brings some unease with it. Quistis doesn’t say a word, but she must have done as Zell asked, and gotten his message to Fuujin - and in the months since then, Zell figured the other woman had simply blown him off, but now here she was - Zell isn’t so much shocked as he is perplexed.

The White SeeD ship docks at Balamb, but weeks pass, and Zell doesn’t see hide nor hair of Fuujin, nor more than a glimpse of any of the other residents of the ship, and he has to wonder what they’re doing here if Fuujin didn’t come to see him. “I think they must have some business at Garden,” Quistis tells him one day, as the ship looms over the harbor like a pale giant in the mist. “I’ve seen some of the SeeDs up in administration. I don’t know what they’d be doing up there, though. Xu doesn’t tell me much these days.”

“And Fuujin?”

Quistis looks sideways at him, clutching her scarf over her face. “I haven’t seen her,” she says.

“Neither have I.”

“She might not have come,” Quistis says, in a tone as though she’s trying to brace Zell for disappointment. “Whatever they’re up to, it seems pretty official. You know. Not a leisure visit.”

“Seems more likely she _should_ have come, then,” Zell remarks. When Quistis gives him a sort of worrying look, he adds, “look, I’m not fretting or anything. She knows where to find me if she wants to see me. I’m not going to go looking for trouble.”

“Well, yes, that’s true,” Quistis says, sounding reassured. “You know better, I suppose.”

Still, Zell isn't immune to curiosity - and the nagging question of what Seifer thinks of this new development is ever-present in his mind. Zell never mentioned his run-in with Fuujin or his attempt to get in contact with her, and he has to wonder if Seifer is aware or not, in that eerie way that he always seems to be aware of whatever Zell is up to despite their lack - intentional or otherwise - of good communication. 

“Do you think her and Seifer might run into each other?”

“I dunno. Seems unlikely,” Zell says. “If she wants to avoid him, I’m sure she can.”

“Do you think she will, though?”

Zell laughs. “Quis, why are you asking me? Since when do I ever know _anything_ about what’s going on? Maybe something’s going to happen, maybe not. I don’t want to worry about stuff before it happens, okay?”

“Well,” Quistis says, looking thoughtful and then smiling. “That’s a good attitude to have.”

“Yeah, I’m trying.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realize it's been an unusually long stretch between the last chapter and this one... sorry! It's personal stuff and I can't really say I know when I'll be ready to tackle this fic wholeheartedly again, so I'm calling it on hiatus for now. There may be updates but don't expect frequent ones. This story is so close to the end that I'd really like to just finish it, not drag it out any longer, but this is one time where I can't power through just to get it done, so I'm not going to try that. My apologies, and thanks to anyone who's been patient enough to stick with this fic!


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